Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon
by Sana Jisushi
Summary: You asked for it, you got it! OC fic. Asa the misfit and Yoko the ice queen are drawn together against the Etherium to save every world that's ever been. There are clocks. Clocks and moldy bread.
1. Legendary Warriors?

The clock in the middle of town used to chime every hour, with a different tone for each hour of the day. Nowadays, it only chimed during the hours when most people were up and off to work and school, after the neighbourhoods had complained to city council that the clock at night sounded less like a chime than a "BONG" that jolted them and their families awake. Tonight, five hours after the clock had stopped sounding for the day, a girl with blue hair in a quickly gathered side ponytail was poring over her notebooks as she kicked up her heels on the bed.

"Asa!" Her mother's voice came through the door, careful not to be too loud and bother the next-door neighbours. "It's eleven o'clock! Go to sleep already!"

She sighed and rolled over on the thin, brightly coloured blanket. "All right..." Asa's deep blue eyes turned to the side at her wall. Magazine clippings and printouts from the school computer were taped on messily, some overlapping each other, and all depicting TV characters in helmets, masks, shoulder pads and spandex uniforms. She smiled and pulled out the bow tying her ponytail before getting up to brush her hair, brush her teeth and get into her pajamas. She'd definitely go to sleep before one this time.

Out of the paint-chipped apartment building, down the streets through the still-busy downtown to the tree-filled square and the clock tower, and still further northeast to a calm suburb with nothing but big houses and a temple, another girl lay on her bed. She pressed buttons on her flat black cell phone with the speed of a texting champion.

'Yukari, remember the diorama for our history project. I'm bringing the posters and the script. -Yoko.'

With that done, the ash-haired girl snapped her phone shut and put it back in the pouch on her school bag. Everything was ready. Everything was done.

Eleven-fifty-nine. Asa was wrapped up in her itchy, worn blanket, moving her notebook into the crack of moonlight that flashed between the window and the broken blinds. Yoko was snuggling into her fluffy black and white comforter, trying to hide her face from the light. The clock tower shone the moon's glow right back at it with its just-cleaned glass face.

Twelve.

BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG.

"Huh?" Asa's eyes snapped open. She had just enough time to stash her notebook under the blanket when her mother rushed into the room. "What's going on?"

"The clock must be broken!" Asa's mother whispered. "It's not supposed to ring at night anymore. The neighbours will be grumpy enough without you making noise. Go back to sleep!"

BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG.

"Ehn...?" Yoko rubbed her eyes and clamped her hands over her ears with handfuls of comforter. "Wha's this noise... I wanna sleep."

BONG. BONG. BONG.

A tiny sparkle grew above the tip of the clock tower, separated into two, and then flew away.

BONG.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 1: Legendary Warriors? Sounds Like Fun, But...

"This concludes our report on the Gessou Village Rebellion." Yoko flipped her long hair and clapped her script on the desk so the pages were even. Her partner, a girl with a crown braid and shiny black glasses, bowed and lifted up their diorama as the class applauded. The teacher stepped up to the podium.

"Yes, yes. Nakayama, Okamoto, you may be seated." The two did as they were told and put their supplies away under their desks. "Next, Kawada Asa and Kondou Hoshi."

A girl's hand grabbed Asa's shoulder and shook her. "Asa, wake up! It's our turn!"

"Zzz."

Hoshi sighed and ruffled her own messy hair. "Asa, did you stay up late again?"

"Only a li'l...", she mumbled, shifting over onto her friend.

"Hey! Off!"

"Kondou! Kawada!" The teacher spun over to face them. "Is there a problem, girls?"

"N-no! We're fine!" Hoshi hoisted her partner up by the arms and shook her violently until she awoke. "See? Fine! Asa, let's go present now!"

"Nn..." Asa blinked the dizziness away and yawned. "Hoshi, you're mean."

Her friend just smiled. "And what would you do without me?"

In her desk at the other end of the classroom, Yoko stifled a small laugh. Okamoto Yukari turned around in her seat.

"Yoko, you shouldn't laugh at the unfortunate," she joked, adjusting her glasses.

Yoko shook her head, expression unchanging. "It's not unfortunate, it's just funny." She pointed up at the beginning of Asa and Hoshi's presentation. "See, they've gotten over it just fine."

Yukari put her hand up to her forehead and did an exaggerated dip back. "You're so cold, Yoko~ No wonder people at school are afraid of you."

The grey-haired one tilted her head. "They're afraid of me?"

Her friend sat back up and pouted. "Geez, Yoko, for the 'cool and unapproachable' girl, you really don't get it, do you? Your position is intimidating! You cast a shadow on everyone around you!"

Yoko blinked. "What position? I'm what now?"

"Do not interrupt the lesson!" The history teacher's grip on his red pen was enough to snap it in two.

"Sorry."

It was a white room, that was for certain. There weren't any windows to look out to see what time of day it was, nor to watch anyone outside. There wouldn't be anyone outside. Besides the strange designs carved into the walls, the only thing to see in the room was one's own shadow. A ripple occasionally appeared in the air, leaving one questioning whether it had really happened. This was the Etherium. There was nothing else. If there was, it did not matter.

A flicker in the air, and a figure teleported into the room.

"Have you located the Moon Pieces?" came a voice in front of him.

"None of them have left the town. We would have sensed them otherwise."

"That is not the answer to the question." The air rippled and the man in front of it shivered. "What was asked was if you had found them and brought them here."

The man grumbled something and looked up. "I'll be right on that." He teleported out.

"Good," said the voice in the empty room.

"We barely saved ourselves." Hoshi shook her head and walked out of the school with her friend right beside her. "What were you thinking, Asa?"

"I'm sorry..." Asa's head and shoulders slumped. "I haven't been getting much sleep lately."

Hoshi shook her head, hair flying everywhere. "You were probably reading over your kids' show stories, right?"

Asa made a face. "There is nothing wrong with writing yourself as a great hero as long as you don't post it anywhere for people to mock."

Hoshi waved a hand. "Sure, sure." She sprung forward and waved back. "I'm going home. The train won't wait for me, you know. See you later, okay?"

Asa waved back and fidgeted with the ribbon on the left side of her head as her friend ran down the street. She pulled up her uniform's sleeve and checked her watch, and then walked towards the clock tower. She had recently transferred to Clair Academy, which was on the other side of town, but she knew how to get home from the tower. After all, it was right in the centre of Kazahana City.

She walked through the streets, flitting over to buy a sweet potato from a street vendor, and kept her eyes on the clock tower until she reached it. She plunked herself down onto a bench and began to munch on her sweet potato. People walked by, sitting down, getting up, chatting with each other and walking through the square to get to where they needed to go. Asa was already finishing off the fire-cooked snack when she spotted a twinkle by the bench.

"Huh? What's this?" She peered over the side and blinked. Whatever it was, it was bright pink and twinkled. It looked like a toy, but it felt like something else.

"N-no way... Really!" Asa's eyes opened wide. In less than a second, she was flailing the arm that was holding the last bite of her sweet potato while scrambling in the bush with the other arm. "Ow! Ow! Thorns! Ow! Come on, let me grab it, let me grab it!" Her hand closed around the pink thing, and she yanked it out.

"Yes!"

"...hey."

Asa squeaked and turned around slowly, clutching the pink whatever-it-was to her chest. "Wh-what is it?"

Behind her, standing by the bench, with the last bite of Asa's sweet potato in her hair, was Nakayama Yoko. Asa's eyes darted to the stick in her hand. No potato. She must have flung it off in her flailing fit.

"...oops..."

Yoko sighed, picked off the piece of sweet potato with two fingernails, and flung it into the garbage can. She looked back at Asa, who was quivering and clinging to what must have been her cell phone. Yukari couldn't have been right. Did she really scare people?

"Next time, be more careful." The most refined girl in class picking pieces of sweet potato out of her hair must have looked strange, but Yoko kept a straight face while doing so. "You dropped your phone in there, huh?"

Asa blinked and looked down at what she had dug out of the bush. It did look like the case for a flip cell phone, but it was puffy and rounded, much bigger than her classmates' pancake-flat phones. The front flap over the phone compartment was white, and the rest was a bright pinkish-orange. Another, smaller compartment with a zipper was stationed on the back, which might have accounted for some of the bulk. "O-oh, yeah!" She sweatdropped and put her hand behind her head. "I'm really sorry, uh... Yamanaka-san, right?"

Yoko blinked and shook her head. "Nakayama Yoko. You've got it backwards." She stepped forward and peered closer to the blue-haired girl, who shivered a little.

Was this introduction time? Asa stashed the phone into her tattered school bag and took a deep breath. "I'm Asa! Kawada Asa! I transferred to your school this year!"

Yoko sighed - ah, yes, the girl who slept through her presentation. Asa blinked.

"Um, Nakayama-san, what is it?"

"Nothing," she said, and stood up. Her head tilted a little at the other girl. "But the bow on your uniform is crooked."

"Gah!" Asa tossed the stick for her sweet potato into the garbage can and scrambled to fix the bow. Yoko pushed a piece of her hair behind her shoulder and walked off towards her house. She was just about to leave the square when she noticed a sparkle up in a tree.

"Hm?" Yoko looked up, moving her head around to try and get a better view of what it was. It was out of her reach, anyway, so she couldn't grab it to find out. Maybe if she -

"Yoko!" She turned her head to see Yukari carefully walking up to her, her face obscured by a mountain of shopping bags. "There you are. Want to come down to the shopping district with me?"

A gust of wind blew through the trees. Yoko turned the rest of her body to face her friend, covered her mouth and laughed quietly. "It looks like you've already been."

Yukari peeked over her pile of bags. "But I'm not done. Come on, I just got paid for helping out at my mom's store!"

Even if she had been paid, Yoko doubted that it was that much. "Our school has a uniform, Yukari-chan. What do you need all those clothes for?"

"Weekends." The bags shrugged. "And holidays."

Yoko shook her head. "Sorry, I can't come with you today. I'm already going to work on something. I'll see you tomorrow, though." She waved, hoping that Yukari could see behind her visual block. The girls parted ways, and Yoko walked along with her open school bag. A fat purple cell phone pouch sat next to her small, modern black phone.

The Etherium was pretty with its carvings in the walls, but the blankness of it all gave him the shivers, and the boss - what was left of him - did the same twice over. His cloak billowed out in the wind, and he scanned around the city, standing on top of a building.

He was going to gather the Moon Pieces. There was someone who'd know where they were. Now all he had to do was find them both.

Asa sat on her bed and looked at the phone.

And stared.

And stared.

"YES!" She squealed as loudly as she could without getting a complaint from the neighbours. Asa knew what was going on. Of course she knew! She'd seen this a hundred thousand times. She had it taped all over her walls. It even looked like a plastic toy - they always did, and as a bonus, it felt weird. Asa ran her fingers over the embroidery on the white top flap of the case, a little orange sunburst symbol - it must be the team logo. She'd keep an eye out for anyone with something like it on.

"Hm, but it's really girly..." She poked the sunset-coloured fabric. "Am I the pink one or something?" Turning the phone case around, she noticed the zipper on the back. "And what's this?"

"Let me out ~susu!" The phone started moving around.

"H-hey!" Asa almost dropped the case. She turned it around and fumbled with the clip before opening it. An orange, pink and yellow phone, again with the sunburst insignia but this time in blue with a red heart inside it, dropped out and flipped open. Where the screen would be on a normal phone, a little orange creature's head poked out.

"There we go ~susu! Thank you very much ~susu!" It smiled and blinked its huge eyes.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Asa trembled and poked the phone. She took a deep breath again. "Are you some kind of talking computer or something?"

The orange thing's head tilted a little, and Asa noticed that the orange sunburst was on its forehead too. "My name is Starry ~susu! I came from the Garden of Days, and I need your help ~susu!"

Magical world. Cry for help. Now they were talking. Asa grinned and gave the thumbs up. "I'm Kawada Asa, and I'm just the person you need! Just tell me where to go!"

Starry nodded. "Take me outside to where you found me ~susu! The other one might still be there, and then we can look for them ~susu!"

Asa didn't bother to ask what 'the other one' or 'they' were. "Let's go!" She grabbed the phone, its pouch and her light fall jacket, scribbled a note for when her mother came home, and ran out of the apartment.

Across town, Yoko walked into her house, having tied up her hair and changed into some casual clothes. "I think I'm done for the night..." She lay her school bag on the hall table and was about to take off her shoes when something caught her eye. "Hm?"

"What is it, Yoko?" A boy her age, with the same dark grey hair and grey eyes, popped into view. "What's in your bag? Did you go out shopping with your friend again?"

Yoko crossed her arms. "I don't think that's any of your business, Takashi. Besides, you already knew I was working on the car again today."

"Yeah, yeah." He stretched out his arms. "Your friends don't even know you do that stuff, do you? I have such a liar for a twin, and all I'm trying to do is - ooh." He snatched up the purple case from Yoko's bag. "You got another cell phone? You already have one. What are you going to do with two?"

What? Where had that come from? "Hey, get out of my stuff!"

"Whatever." Takashi tossed the phone case into the air, and Yoko snatched it and glared at him. He shrugged and walked off. "You can waste your money on whatever you want. Hey, Mom, Dad, what's for supper?"

Yoko sighed and turned the phone case over in her hand. She already had a cell phone, and this wasn't hers. What kind of phone was it, anyway? It was huge, like from 2004 or something. She opened the back zipper, but there were nothing but trading cards in there. And what was this purple pouch with the white flap over the phone? Yoko hadn't seen anything like it, except...

"Kawada-san...?"

"What are you talking about now?" Takashi called from the kitchen.

Yoko glared in his general direction. "I'm going out again!" She rushed to her room to get changed - her parents would never let her go out of the house in her sweats even if they weren't stained with car oil - and ran out with the cell phone and some essentials in her purse. It wasn't much of a lead, but it was the only one she had.

Asa, at the moment, was running as fast as she could, with Starry's phone in her hand and the pouch attached to her worn, faded jeans. "To the clock tower, right?"

"Yeah ~susu!" The little guy's big orange ears flapped. Asa wondered why they had big orange squares on the ends, but she'd never known much about biology. Besides, Starry was from another world and he lived in a cell phone. Excuses could be made at will.

"There it is!" She pointed and ran through the trees up to the town square. "The clock tower!"

"Oh, you're looking for that?"

"Huh!" Asa stumbled and gaped up at the top of the tower. A man with a white cloak, hat and fancy suit stood at the top, twirling a simple magic wand. He wore a flashy white eye mask with little blue jewels studding the corner of each side, which twinkled whenever he turned his head. The man smirked.

"I am called Mekuramast." He tapped his hand with his wand and a rose appeared between his fingers. "I should be the one saying 'there it is', given that I've finally found you."

Asa glared up at him. "What do you want?"

He smirked and tossed the rose at her. She ducked and scrambled to the side of the tower, only barely managing to halt herself when Mekuramast teleported right in front of her.

"What! You can do that?" She stepped back. "Get out of the way, I'm warning you!"

He shook his head and pointed his wand at Asa, then at Starry in her hand. "You, from the Garden of Days. Where are the Moon Pieces?"

"If we knew, we'd already have them ~susu!" Starry quivered in his phone. "And we're not going to let you get them first ~susu!"

"Yeah!" Asa could follow this well enough. This weird magician guy was an enemy, and these Moon Pieces could only be the things they had to collect. She wondered how many there were.

"Well, that didn't work." Mekuramast twirled his wand in his hand. "Too bad, because if you're not helping me, you're not going to oppose me, either!"

Asa's grip on her phone tightened. "You're not touching Starry or these Moon Pieces! I'm going to transform and kick your butt to Mars!"

Starry looked up at her with his beady little eyes. "You know already?"

She gave the thumbs up. "Of course I know! I-"

A light sparkled above them, and all three looked up. There was a strangely-shaped jewel above them, shiny and black, and jagged on all sides but one. The polished side bore a Roman numeral XIII. Asa stared up at its floating, sparkling glory.

"This must be..."

"A Moon Piece ~susu!"

"It's mine!" Mekuramast jumped into the air. Asa tried to jump as well, but his range far outreached hers, and he quickly retrieved it. He flipped forward in the air and landed on top of a garbage can. "Now that I've got that, I'm getting you two out of the way!"

Asa turned down to Starry in the phone. "How am I supposed to transform?"

"You can't yet ~susu!" he cried.

"What do you mean, I - whoa!" Asa jumped out of the way of a whip of scarves extending from Mekuramast's sleeve. It whistled by her ear and gashed the pavement before returning to his coat. "This is unreal!"

The magician laughed. "As I thought, you're just pathetic. You couldn't even reach the Moon Piece." He pointed his wand at her. "Now get out of my way!"

Asa frantically searched for a weapon, something to take him on with. A broken branch lay by one of the nearby trees, with one cleanly snapped piece as long and wide as a fencing foil. Not the best, but it would do. She ran towards the branch and picked it up, trying not to trip over her feet or get hit by the scarf whip's attack. Mekuramast retracted it again and twirled his wand.

"I should do this quicker," he muttered, and tapped the wand against his hand. Asa shut Starry's phone and clipped it back into the pouch on her waist. Mekuramast drew from nowhere a flying set of playing cards and directed them into the air above him with his wand. He then pointed at Asa, holding her stick out like a sword.

"Get them!"

"Iyaaa!" She screamed and ran forward, shutting her eyes as she did so. This would be fine. It didn't matter if this guy could cut asphalt with a whip made of handkerchiefs tied together. He was her first enemy, and he looked stupid, and the guys who looked stupid were always pathetically easy to take down anyway and- "Kyaa!" Her eyes snapped open. Apparently, the cards exploded on contact. That had been a close one. "Gah!" And now her stick was half its original size.

The remaining cards circled around her, and she stood still, gripping the stick in her hands. "What am I supposed to do, Starry?"

"We can't do anything right now ~susu!" he squeaked. "Not when it's just us ~susu!"

"Well, I'm gonna do something!" Asa charged forward at Mekuramast, as he brought down his wand to send the cards at her. She jumped into the air and lunged at him with the stick.

It snapped.

She fell to the ground amidst the exploding cards. "Augh..."

"No!" Mekuramast said.

Asa looked up. "What? That you didn't kill me?"

The pouch on her waist flailed around. "The Moon Piece ~susu!"

Asa looked up. It wasn't in his hand anymore. Mekuramast swished around, his cape billowing and smacking Asa in the face. "Where...!"

"Yours?"

Standing at the edge of the town square, the Moon Piece caught in one hand and a deep purple version of Asa's orange-pink phone in the other, was Nakayama Yoko. Asa pulled herself up and ran past the magician over to the other girl.

"Nakayama-san! Thank goodness!" She caught her breath and swallowed. "You have one too?"

"Kawada-san." Yoko nodded. "I came to ask you what this is about."

"Hmm." Mekuramast rubbed his chin. "Wasn't there only one escapee from the Garden of Days?" He glared and pointed his wand at them. "Either way, I'll crush all of you!"

Starry shook around in his pouch. Asa quickly pulled him out, and he flipped open and spoke. "Now's your chance to transform ~susu!"

Yoko's expression was peerless. "Transform!"

Asa gave the grey-haired girl the thumbs up. "Now we're talking!" She held Starry up to her face. "What do we do?"

Yoko's grey eyes got even bigger. "We!"

Starry shook around, about the only thing he really could do in the phone. "Use the Moon Card in your pouch ~susu!"

Both girls' hands went to their pouches. Yoko secured the Moon Piece where the cell phone was supposed to lay, and the two of them opened up the back compartments with the zippers and drew out their sets of cards.

"This one?" Yoko bit her lip, showed a card and flipped open her phone. Unlike Asa's, hers was empty of any creature.

"Yeah ~susu!" With Starry's approval, Asa drew the same card. He continued. "Now slash them in the slot ~susu!"

Both did.

A magic circle appeared above them. The symbols on the outside were circles, crescents and slivers - all the phases of the moon. In the middle was the sunburst symbol on Starry's forehead and on their pouches and phones.

"What!" Mekuramast took a step back.

"Oh, yeah!" Asa burst into a giggly smile.

Everything from then on was automatic. Asa and Yoko touched their phones together at the bottom, put their outside hands out to the sides, and grabbed each other's inside hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

What followed was still blurry, and would be every time it happened afterward. They would remember spinning and rainbows and lights flashing, suns and moons and the hands of a clock, and emerging in dresses with bows, short leggings, arm warmers and boots with strange covers. Asa had her hair down and a yellow butterfly-shaped bow replaced her red ribbon; her outfit was made of layers upon layers of orange, blue and pink, with a yellow bow at her chest and another one at her tailbone, and the front one was decorated with a pink heart-shaped jewel. Her phone, with Starry inside, was back in its case at her waist. Yoko's hair now had two short pieces sticking out at each side, gathered by black heart-shaped hair ties. Her dress had much more blue in a darker shade, with a short black jacket, some sort of black asymmetrical apron or skirt attachment under her phone pouch, and white frilly trim on everything. Her bows were red with a green heart-shaped jewel at the chest bow, and the other bow was at her side above the phone pouch. When they landed back on the ground, they glared at their enemy.

"On behalf of the light..." Asa put one hand on her hip. "I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows..." Yoko did the same. "I am Cure Night!"

They put their other hands up in the air. "We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..." Sunday pointed forward.

"To ensure a peaceful era!" Night followed her.

Once Cure Night regained control of her senses, she shook herself. "Is... is this really happening?"

Starry shook from Cure Sunday's pouch. "You guys are Pretty Cure ~susu! You need to help me get the Moon Pieces back to the Garden of Days ~susu!"

"No..."

Night looked up from the mascot to its apparent owner, who was staring at her cutesy costume. "Kawada - uh - Cure Sunday?"

"This is wrong..." Sunday trembled and stared at her hands. She clenched her fists

and yelled up at the heavens. "After all this, I'm a magical girl!"

Starry bounced at her side. "I thought you said you knew all this ~susu!"

"No..." Sunday dropped to the ground and clung to her partner's waist. "Why do you do this to meee..."

"Enough!" Mekuramast twirled his wand and pointed it at them. "Give me that Moon Piece!" More cards appeared in the air and rained down upon them. Cure Night grabbed the still-shocked Sunday and leapt through the torrent of cards over the magician's head, landing on a park bench.

"W-whoa!" She blinked and looked at herself. "We can do that?"

"We didn't even get scratched..." Sunday blinked and detached herself from Night, standing up. "All right, maybe we can beat this guy!"

"Hmph." Mekuramast swept his wand arm to the side, pushing back his cape. "Then what about this?" He drew something from his sleeve.

"The whip!" Sunday jumped up to avoid the strike, and Night dashed to the side. The magician in white brought down the handkerchief string, crushing the park bench in two. Night's eyes narrowed, and she clenched her fists.

"Why did you do that!" She ran at him. "What is your problem?" Before Mekuramast could bring up his whip again, Cure Night shoved him down onto the pavement.

"Ungh! You have no idea what my problem is!" He kicked up and knocked her back, but she managed to guard her face and only skidded back a little. Mekuramast dragged himself up and cracked the whip onto the ground.

"Wow, you're really strong, Night!" Sunday twirled and kicked him from behind, knocking off his hat, and ran up to her friend before he could get up. "We don't just do magic, we can fight! Maybe this'll be okay after all!"

"Oh, no, it won't." The magician picked up his hat and glared at them behind the glint of his gaudy face mask. "I won't even need to face you myself. I'll just get something to do it for me!"

"Something?" Sunday stepped in front of Night.

"What?" Night moved back behind her.

Mekuramast twirled his wand and swung it down. A circular area of the ground in front of him began to ripple as if it were water, and a black, diamond-shaped object floated into his hand. He tossed it past the two girls at the broken branch that Asa had taken her makeshift weapon from, and it began to float into the air. As the two girls watched, the branch shifted and mutated in a dark sort of anti-light. It grew, twisted out legs and arms and a face, and the light flashed off. "Hiiiiiiidoiiiiiinaaaaaaa!"

"What?" Night, now the one in front as far as the branch monster was concerned, spun over to face it.

"Hidoinaa?" Sunday, now in back, followed suit.

"Hidoinaaa!" A leafy arm slammed between them, and would have crushed them had they not leapt to either side of the monster. The branch-Hidoinaa brought its arm back up and roared at Pretty Cure.

"What is this supposed to be?" Night gaped at the monster before them.

"Have you ever watched TV in your life?" Sunday pointed at it. "That's a monster! The magician guy made it, and we have to beat it up!"

As if reacting to the threat, the Hidoinaa swung its arm at them. "Hidoinaa!"

Sunday leapt up onto the arm and ran up it, propelling herself with a jump to punch the Hidoinaa in the face. It wobbled backwards. Night's eyes opened wide, and she quickly dodged behind the Hidoinaa and bodychecked its leg to send it crashing down onto the pavement.

"That was great!" Sunday landed on her feet by her partner.

Night didn't look quite so happy, though. "Now it dented the walkway!"

The monster twitched. It grabbed the trees by its side and hefted itself back up, roaring down at the two girls. "Hidoinaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Uh-oh!" Sunday stepped in front of Night again.

"Will this thing ever die?" Night stood ready to attack it.

Sunday's phone pouch bounced around again. "Hold hands and defeat it ~susu!"

"Hands?" Night blinked.

"Okay!" Sunday grabbed her partner's hand and let her power take over. Night hesitated and did the same, just like when they had transformed. Behind them, the magic circle wrote itself again.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

A dark blue aura formed around them, and they aimed themselves straight at the Hidoinaa.

"You've used up your days..." Cure Sunday called.

"...and you're out of time!" Cure Night finished. The aura grew larger.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

They launched into the air, propelled by nothing but the blue light around them and the power within them. Holding onto one another's hands, they spun around the Hidoinaa like a blue comet, singing its wooden body with their energy. Finally, they paused for a split second in front of the Hidoinaa and slammed right into it. Darkness-covered splinters flew everywhere, burning up in the aura around Pretty Cure, and they burst through to the centre of the monster before it broke apart completely. The dark energy vaporized, and the wood reshaped itself into a harmless broken branch as it had been before. The blue light around the two girls flashed away, and they landed safely on the ground.

Mekuramast frowned. "This won't do. I'll have to disappear for now!" He swished his cape and teleported back to where he had come from.

Sunday looked at Night.

Night looked at Sunday.

"Yes!" The brightly-coloured bluehead let go of her partner's hand and spun in a circle. "That was awesome!" She looked up at the sky and cupped her hands around her mouth. "I forgive you!"

"What's she talking about?" Night scratched her head and frowned.

Starry moved around in Cure Sunday's pouch again. "Let me out ~susu!"

"Okay!" Sunday opened the pouch, and the cell phone popped out and open. A puff of smoke appeared, and the phone dropped back into the pouch. Starry, however, was standing out of it. He was now the size of a big plushie, and his whole body was visible, rather than just his face. He had dark orange triangular markings around his neck, stubby little arms and legs, and a thin tail with a puff at the end. The fluffy creature leapt up and hugged Cure Sunday first, then hopped over to cling onto Cure Night.

"I haven't been like this for so long ~susu!" he proclaimed.

"What just happened?" Night blinked.

Starry looked up at her cutely. "I can go into either one of your transformation phones ~susu. You need both of them to transform together, so I can also easily find which way the other phone went ~susu."

Sunday smiled and hit her open palm with her fist. "So the reason you told me to come here is because she would be here!"

"Well, I hoped so ~susu," Starry said. "She was in that direction, and I would have said to keep going if we hadn't been caught by that magician ~susu."

Night shook her head at the little creature. "Nothing's perfect, I guess."

Sunday shivered, remembering their conversation that afternoon. Cure Night was her partner, but Nakayama Yoko was still kind of intimidating, especially if you'd thrown food into her hair earlier that day. "So what do we do now?"

"I'd assume detransform." A light flashed and Night was Yoko again, brushing off invisible lint on her skirt.

Sunday immediately followed suit, and Asa tugged at her own skirt and looked around to distract herself. "Hey, everything's fixed!"

"Huh?" Yoko looked up and scanned the area. The dented blacktop, the crushed pavement and the bench that Mekuramast had cut in half had all inexplicably gone back to normal. It must have been another one of these magic things. Yoko startled herself with how much she was accepting this already. The girl next to her was one thing, but Yoko had had no interest in anything about magic or fighting or monsters before. Now that she had to deal with them, though, it was no use staying away.

"So we're called Pretty Cure, right, Starry?" Asa beamed at the cute little thing. "And we get to beat up monsters when we see them, right?"

Starry nodded. "You also have to help me collect the Moon Pieces ~susu!" He climbed down Yoko's arm, despite her uncomfortable staring, and pulled the one she'd caught out of her pouch. "We need to return them to their place ~susu!"

"Awesome! Let's do it!" Asa smiled, but switched back to her more nervous stance when she realized that Yoko was staring at them. (It wasn't hard; she was just as involved as Asa was, and Starry was clinging onto her arm and waving around that jewel she'd caught.) "Uh, do you want to, Nakayama-san?"

Yoko looked between Asa and Starry and shrugged. "Do I have a choice?"

"Yeah! All right!" Asa caught Starry as he leapt into her arms, and they spun around together, dancing like children on sugar. Yoko shook her head. And just after the history project was over with, too.


	2. Another Moon Piece?

They'd become heroes. Kawada Asa, the awkward new transfer student, and Nakayama Yoko, the secretive school idol, had come upon cute cell phones that could be used to hold a creature from the Garden of Days. The creature, Starry, led Asa to the clock tower in the middle of town to find a Moon Piece, but it had almost been taken away by a magician named Mekuramast before Yoko appeared and retrieved it. Together, Asa and Yoko transformed into Cure Sunday and Cure Night and defeated their first Hidoinaa. Still, as much as Asa seemed to love fighting evil, Yoko wasn't so sure about it. She sat in her desk and thought as the class waited for their teacher to come.

"Yukari!" she whispered, poking her friend under her crown braid with a pencil.

"Ow!" Okamoto Yukari turned around in her desk and winced. "Yoko, what did you do that for?"

"Sorry." Yoko tilted her head towards the other side of the classroom, where Asa was sleeping soundly in her desk. "What do you know about Kawada Asa-san?"

"Oh?" Yukari leaned forward. "Ice Queen Nakayama is actually making more friends? Odd choice, too."

Yoko facepalmed. "I told you to stop calling me that. It's ridiculous. Besides, we're not friends, I just..." She paused for a second. "I just wanted to know."

The door swung open, and everybody (minus Asa, who was still snoring away) sat up straight for Nakata-sensei's entrance.

"Um, hello, everyone!"

The various classmates slumped back down, tilted their heads or smiled and waved at the figure jumping into the classroom. It certainly wasn't the teacher; this girl was a classmate, with short, fluffy red hair and a big pink bow in the back. She twirled around, flashing the charm attached to her bag.

"Ogata-san!" "Mia-chan!" Some of the other kids got out of their seats and crowded around her. She smiled and waved at the circle. Kondou Hoshi was trying to shake Asa awake, and Yoko and Yukari similarly didn't get out of their seats.

The girl in the middle of the circle opened up her bag. "I brought some souvenirs from my vacation!"

"Oooh!" One of the others stared inside. "What's that one?"

Hoshi finally shook hard enough for Asa to blink sleepily up at her, then at the front. "Ehn...?"

"Oh, this?" The classmate beamed at her circle of friends. "Ah... It was in some weird shop in the mountains." She held up a glimmering chunk of stone. The once-dozing Asa sat straight up in her chair.

M-Moon Piece!

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 2: Mysterious Moon Piece? Watch Out for Stalkers!

Five figures appeared in the Etherium. The ripples seemed to move around them, appearing in front of one, then another, then far away. All five stood up straight and bowed in the same direction.

"Mekuramast hasn't found any Moon Pieces yet," came the voice from nowhere.

The other four looked at the magician in question, light glinting off their eye masks. He simply tilted his head upward and removed his own mask, allowing the light to sparkle from its blue accent jewels. "Well, you can't blame me for trying. We've only just begun, after all."

"And they call you the Master Magician?" A young boy stretched back and made a face. "You're just lazy and boring."

"It's better than your title, Binbeat," commented a boy not much older - or was he two men? - oh, now they were quintuplets, and female at that - and then they were back to one boy. "The Youthful Musician? Please. The rest of us have titles that actually make sense."

"Shut your face, Tachimany," the child grumbled.

Tachimany split into three old women. "Just one face?" They turned back into the one boy and dodged Binbeat's frustrated swiping.

"Silence!" A woman stepped forward and slapped a riding crop against her gloved hand. She was wearing white like the others, with a short, open red jacket and matching jewels on the ends of her mask. She threw back her head as she turned and glared at everyone present. "The boss hasn't even finished, and here you are, bickering." She swept the arm holding the riding crop to the side, pointing at an old woman wearing a white dress and a purple head-covering with white stars. "Mireyes is the only one who hasn't interrupted."

"That old lady sees the future," Binbeat whined. "She probably just saw that you'd flip out on us, so she shut up."

The woman in red smacked the child over the head and stepped back into line. "Continue, boss."

The ripples came again. "Thank you, Kainatrol. I was going to suggest that everyone descend upon the town to find the Moon Pieces, but on second thought, maybe you should go solo. After all, there's no one in our way."

She bowed and quickly put her dark red hair back into place upon rising. "Oh, I'll find them."

Mekuramast spun his magic wand, stepping forward. "With all due respect, boss, Kainatrol's abilities are more suited to other areas. If you're unhappy with me, I completely understand, but you could still send Binbeat or Tachimany to do the job."

The aforementioned animal tamer glared, but the magician paid no mind. The air rippled again, seeming to think about this. "You may continue searching in a different area of the town, Mekuramast. I'll be sending Kainatrol to the area you were in. Someone with her... 'people skills' should be able to find the Moon Pieces if they're there."

The lunch bell rang before they knew it. Asa and Hoshi headed towards the door, but Asa stopped mid-step.

"Asa?" Hoshi turned around to face her.

"I'll catch up with you!" Asa beamed. "I have to talk with Nakayama-san for a bit."

Hoshi stared. "You don't mean Nakayama Yoko? What do you want to talk to her about?"

She sweatdropped. "Well, I needed to apologize for throwing food in her hair yesterday."

The other girl ran a hand through her mess of hair. "Your funeral. I'll be at the usual table." She shrugged before walking out the door. Asa shivered, gulped and walked over to Yoko's desk. The silver-haired girl was eating alone, without even Okamoto Yukari with her. That, at least, made it easier.

"Nakayama-san?"

Yoko looked up. "What?"

Asa jumped a little. "Hey, uh, you know that girl who came back from vacation? The one with the big pink hair bow?"

"That clashes with her hair?" Yoko nodded. "I don't know her personally. Ogata Mia-san. Why?"

Asa glanced around quickly enough to slap herself in the face with her short blue hair. "She had a weird stone with her! Don't you think it's a Moon Piece?"

"A Moon Piece?" The other girl frowned and drew out the Moon Piece she already had. The two girls inspected its rough edges, polished top, clear exterior and black core. "Her stone looked nothing like this. It didn't even have a number carved into it."

"Don't just say that if you don't know!" Asa put her hands on her hips without thinking. "All we've seen is this one. The others could be completely different! And it could be in disguise, for all we know!"

Yoko shook her head and took another bite of egg omelette. Asa wondered why that was the only thing in her entire lunch box. "Shouldn't you ask these things to Starry? He knows this Garden of Days better than we do, and he's the one after the Moon Pieces."

Asa looked back at her desk, where she'd left her phone pouch. "He's still sleeping! Even I wake up for lunch time."

'But not for my history presentation,' Yoko thought, and sighed inwardly. "Well, I don't think it's a Moon Piece, but we'll ask when you transfer him over to my phone after school just to be sure. Now go eat with your friend." She put another piece of omelette into her mouth, and that was the end of that. Asa shuddered and went back to her desk, picked up the pouch and her lunch box, and walked out to go find Hoshi.

Two other girls, classmates from the Lily Class, had gathered on the rooftop of the school, eating their lunch and laughing.

"It's really cool that Ogata-san brought all that stuff back, right?"

"Yeah, cool, cool! I wish I could go on a vacation like that."

"Me too, me too! I want to go!"

Behind the two of them, a figure materialized. They put their lunches down in unison, jumped up and spun around. "Wh-who are you?"

The woman laughed and adjusted her face mask. "You can call me Kainatrol. Now..." The riding crop materialized in her hand. "What are your names?"

The schoolgirls started to feel strange. Their eyes went blank, and their hands dropped to the sides.

"Izumi Misaki," said one.

"Misaki Izumi," said the other.

Kainatrol shook her head. What people would name their children these days. The poor girls probably got teased so much in school for matching. "On to more important things. Have either of you seen any... strange stones?"

Izumi Misaki and Misaki Izumi nodded at the same time.

"Ogata-san."

"Yeah, Ogata-san."

"In her bag."

"She had one."

The maroon-haired intruder smirked. "Oh, really? Tell me more, and things will just go back to normal." 'This'll show him,' she thought. 'A magician can't do what an animal tamer can.'

Everyone else had cleared out of the classroom for the day; thankfully, Asa had the excuse that she had to clean up the room afterward, and not even Yukari would question if Yoko stuck around after school. Starry tumbled out of Asa's transformation phone and popped into his true form with a stretch and a yawn. "Good afternoon ~susu!"

Yoko raised an eyebrow. "How can you stay asleep so long? It's useful for us, but I'd think it might not be good for your health."

The little orange thing jumped up and scratched his head. "I haven't slept in a few days ~susu. I've just been searching for Moon Pieces ~susu."

"Oh, that's right!" Asa hit her palm with her fist. "Starry, did you sense a Moon Piece around here today?"

He tilted his head. "What are you talking about ~susu? I can't sense Moon Pieces like I can your cell phones ~susu."

Asa facevaulted. Yoko tilted her head a bit. "What gave you that idea, Kawada-san?"

"N-nothing..." She pulled herself up from the ground, face bright red. "So how are we supposed to find them?"

Starry hopped up onto Yoko's shoulder, not noticing her perturbed expression. "Where did you see the Moon Piece? We can check and see if it is one if we pick it up and use the Scan Card ~susu."

"You mean one of the cards in the pack?" Asa already had them out from her cell phone pouch and was flipping through them. "It's the one with stars on it, right?"

"Yeah, the one that says 'Scan' ~susu!"

Yoko leaned on the windowsill and looked out the window while the other two were talking. Asa was already so used to this. It was inevitable, considering that she seemed to watch way too much TV - kids' TV, at that, just like the rumours kept saying. Seriously, though, what was this Pretty Cure thing all about? They didn't even know why they needed the Moon Pieces, or who these other people were who also wanted them. And Asa wasn't even questioning this. That was probably the scariest part. "Hey, Starry-"

Starry and Asa turned to Yoko, but she was staring out the window.

"What is it ~susu?"

"Is it another monster? Or the magician guy? Or one of his friends?"

Yoko shifted over and motioned to some bushes in the courtyard. Asa and Starry poked their heads through the open window and stared. A figure in a trenchcoat looked up at them and ducked behind the bushes.

"What was that ~susu?"

She frowned and rose out of her chair, glaring in the direction of the bushes. "Somebody here must have a stalker. We've got to do something about this."

Starry blinked. "But Pretty Cure is meant to fight Hidoinaa and the Etherium ~susu. What's a stalker?"

Yoko flipped back her grey hair and turned the glare on him. He gulped and jumped back into Asa's phone. "This Pretty Cure thing should be used to help everyone. We are going after that person, and I don't want to hear any objections from either of you."

Asa gulped and held tightly to Starry's phone. She usually gained confidence around Yoko if the conversation turned to Pretty Cure - she knew her way around this sort of thing, after all! - but the Ice Queen Nakayama glare was undefeatable. "L-lead the way!"

Yoko frowned a little, but nodded and walked out the door and down the hall as quickly as she could without breaking school rules. Asa started running, but had to brake every few steps so as not to pass in front of Yoko. She contemplated leaping down the stairs in one jump, but falling on her face wouldn't earn her any hero points and would probably get the other girl mad at her. By the time they were out of the school, the stalker was no longer in the bushes.

"They've got to be somewhere." Yoko stood up and swept her gaze around. "Kawada-san, do you see anyone?"

Asa gulped. "Well, there's - hey, look!"

Yoko turned around to see the other girl pointing and jabbering at a figure down the path with short, fluffy hair and a big pink bow. "What?"

"It's her! It's that girl in our class!" The blue-haired girl raised a fist in the air and grinned before zooming off in the classmate's direction.

Yoko facepalmed. "She really is crazy." A flash of brown in the bushes caught her eye, and she started to move towards it, hiding behind trees and bushes on the way.

Inside the cell phone pouch, Starry had swirls in his eyes."Asa is usually too scared to move around Yoko, but when it comes to Pretty Cure, I can't keep up with her ~susu..."

Asa ignored him. "OGATA-SAAAAN!"

Ogata Mia turned around and blinked at the unfamiliar girl. "O-oh, hey! You're that new girl in my class, right?"

Asa beamed. "Yeah, I'm Kawada Asa! Hey, I know this sounds weird, but can I see that weird stone you brought to class?"

At the same time, Yoko spotted the trenchcoat from behind a tree. Got you. She was about to step forward and confront the person when a voice came from the side.

"Well, now, what are you doing following innocent people?"

Yoko's head turned to an older woman with bright red hair and a necklace with a white pearlescent heart shape at the front. However, the woman wasn't looking at her. The figure in the trenchcoat stood up and turned around.

"Dawn," she replied (the stalker was female?), crossing her arms. "Or what should I call you now? It can't be your name anymore."

'Dawn' frowned. "That's none of your concern. I should have known it would have been you. Haven't aged a bit in years, have you?"

"We generally don't." The one in the trenchcoat shook her hidden head. "Now get out of my way."

The lighter-haired woman's eyes kept their light. "You may be called the Feared Tamer, but your control still won't work on me."

Yoko gaped from behind the tree. What was going on? The one in the trenchcoat made a disapproving noise.

"Unlike you, I can still do something. The Moon Dial is already ours." She walked off and disappeared into the air. "We only need the pieces."

'Dawn' glared at the space where the other person had been and walked off in the direction she'd come in. Neither of them seemed to have taken any notice of Yoko.

Mia frowned and hesitated before pulling the strange stone out of her bag and holding it out. "Don't do anything weird to it, okay?"

"I'm not going to hurt it!" Asa pulled out her phone and swiped the Scan Card. She waited for a bit.

Nothing happened.

"Whaaat?" She stared and started shaking her phone. "But I was so sure!"

"It's not magic!"

Asa blinked. "H-huh?"

Mia put the stone back in her bag and stepped backward. "You're just as weird as everyone says! You really do believe in all that weird stuff you watch on TV, right? I'm not going to buy into it! Find someone else to be your weird 'friend' who helps you delude yourself! As for me, I'm going to go find my mom, who's picking me up, and then I'm going to go out shopping, and then I'm going to go home and do my homework and go to sleep! Know who does all that? Normal people!" She ran off in the other direction, leaving Asa standing with Starry in the phone in one hand and the card in the other.

"Asa..." Starry looked down. Asa trembled, staring off where the other girl had run away.

"Kawada-san!" Yoko ran up behind her and grabbed her shoulder. "Snap out of it!"

Asa's head snapped back. "N-nakayama-san?"

Yoko removed her hand and crossed her arms. "You two need to hear this. I found the stalker, but..." She looked over at Starry in Asa's hand. "Tell me what the Moon Dial is."

Starry popped out of the phone and landed on the ground in front of the two of them. Yoko crouched down to look at him. "The Moon Dial can reset time."

"Eeehh?"

The little orange thing nodded. "If all the Moon Pieces are put into the Moon Dial, it can start the world over from the very beginning ~susu."

Yoko frowned. "Why would the people we're fighting - whoever they are - have something like that, or want to use it?"

"They're from the Etherium, a void where time doesn't matter ~susu." Starry looked up at the two. "They want to expand their void to the Garden of Days and even to other worlds ~susu!"

"How would that even work?" Yoko blinked twice.

Starry cleared his throat. "They say that every world began like that before it was created ~susu. If a world is turned back to that state, the Etherium can expand there and keep it that way forever ~susu!"

"So they're imperialists, only with an extra turning-the-world-into-nothing bit." Yoko frowned and got up, turning to look at Asa. The blue-haired girl just stared at her feet. Yoko grabbed her shoulders and shook her.

"HEY!"

"...huh?" Asa blinked a few times.

Yoko quickly removed her hands. "Pay attention! This is your thing, not mine! I don't know what's gotten into you, but someone's in danger here, and one would think that you would be the first one to step up!"

Asa stared into Yoko's eyes. What was she talking about? It was the same thing that Mia had screamed at her for and that she knew people were whispering about at lunchtime when she wasn't there. But Yoko wanted her to do it. Starry, too, who had hopped into Yoko's phone and was looking up at her.

"...what do I need to do?"

Yoko's grey eyes locked onto Asa, making sure she couldn't get away. "These 'Etherium' people think Ogata-san's got a Moon Piece. Even if she doesn't, we have to go after her and make sure she's safe."

Asa gulped. "She... She's going out shopping. She said so."

Yoko's head turned in the direction that Mia had gone. "Probably at the Seiki Open Mall - the old shopping district. I know the shortest way. Let's go." She put Starry, in the phone, away and ran down the path. Asa stared after for a moment and nodded, breaking into a run to catch up with her.

Mekuramast hadn't come up with anything. He concentrated on spinning his wand in one hand, glaring at it as if that would make a Moon Piece show up. This lasted until he heard someone stepping out onto the roof from nowhere. Kainatrol. He really couldn't stand that animal tamer. Rather than give her the satisfaction of seeing him frustrated, the magician sat up, making his wand-spinning look more like boredom. "Didn't find anything, did you?"

The smack behind him must have been Kainatrol's riding crop on her gloved hand again. "There are two mistakes you should correct before speaking with me again. I didn't get anything, and that's only because I didn't get it yet."

"If you say so," he shrugged. "You might need a little help, though." He pulled off his hat and pointed his wand at it before drawing out a small, black diamond-shaped object. "If, that is, you turn out to need a Hidoinaa. I know you never keep any on you."

"Keep it." Kainatrol came up behind him and slapped the diamond out of his hand. "I'm sure I won't need it, but thank you so much for the offer." She teleported out, leaving the Master Magician to put his top hat back on and roll his eyes.

"See you, mom!" Ogata Mia waved back as she ran into the street. Nobody had driven it for years save for vendors and equipment trucks; it had been paved over with bricks decades ago and converted to the Seiki Open Mall, and, though not many people were outside, there were bound to be more in the store. She passed a small 'courtyard' - really just a gathering of tall potted plants - and walked towards a clothing store before someone put a hand on her shoulder. Someone who hadn't been there before. She gasped and spun around, stumbling back. Before her was a woman in a crisp white dress shirt and matching pants, a shiny dark red vest, and a white eye mask with dark red accents. Her hair was red, but much, much darker than Mia's, and she held a riding crop in her hand.

"Who..."

"My name is Kainatrol." She smirled and looked into Mia's eyes. "Give me this 'strange stone' I've been hearing so much about."

Down the street, among a few people, Yoko's eyes widened. "Hey -"

Asa grabbed her and covered her mouth. "Are you crazy?" She dragged Yoko into a corner and whispered, removing her hands. "We aren't even transformed! You'll be letting her and the whole town know who we are!"

"Well, at least you're back to normal." Yoko put her palm to her forehead. "What are we supposed to do? Hide?"

They were too far away to see Mia's eyes glaze over from mind control, but they could certainly see her reaching into her bag. Asa looked around. "There's no one near the plants! Let's go!" They ran toward the 'courtyard', making sure that no one else would see them.

Kainatrol took the stone and looked it over. A frown grew on her face, twisting into a glare. "No... it's not even a Moon Piece!" Her control of the schoolgirl snapped apart, and Mia looked left and right, taking in sharp breaths and then staring at the woman in front of her. Kainatrol flung the stone back at her, hitting her in the stomach. Mia cried out and doubled over in pain as it dropped to the bricks.

The animal tamer clenched her fists and breathed to regain her composure. "You've been nothing but a waste of time."

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

Their heads turned to a burst of light inside the gathered plants. The other customers at the mall took this time to run away from the whatever-it-was before two strangely-dressed girls emerged from between two large potted ferns.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Night looked at Sunday and sweatdropped. "Let's never hide between plant pots again."

Sunday gave a nervous laugh. "I just about got stung by a wasp..."

Kainatrol's eyes widened and her pupils shrunk. "It can't be... no, you're different from them!"

Sunday quirked an eyebrow at her. "Uh, what now?"

"Never mind that!" Night ran up to Mia, who was gasping for breath. "Are you all right?"

Mia grabbed onto Night's leg warmer to try and get up before she offered a hand, coughing. "You... you're..."

Night didn't answer, just looking down at her. "You have to get out of here, Ogata-san."

Kainatrol had mostly regained her calm expression by now, save for a small twitch at the side of her eye. "It wasn't a Moon Piece anyway. I'll be going now." She stepped backwards and disappeared into a ripple in the air.

"Heeey!" Cure Sunday waved her arms in the air and shouted. "We didn't even get to fight anything! That's so cheap!"

"Sunday." Night groaned, helping Mia stand. "We have more important things to do than complain."

Sunday shivered a bit and sighed. "You're right... Still, it's a big letdown, you know?"

"How?"

Mia bobbled around, getting her balance, and bent down to pick up her stone. Night let her go and watched as she stood up. The three never said anything for a while, until Mia ran off in the same direction she came from.

"Morning, Asa!" Hoshi waved as the blue-haired girl ran up to the shoe lockers. "How's it going?"

"All right," Asa said, bending over to open up her own locker. "I... huh?"

"What is it?" Hoshi leaned over to see her friend draw out a piece of pink paper. Unfolding it revealed cute stationery with pink cats running around the border, and only one word written in the middle. Sorry.

"Sorry..." Asa read, staring at the note.

"Huh?" Hoshi raised an eyebrow. "Sorry for what?"

"I dunno!" Asa folded up the note and stuffed it into her uniform pocket. She turned her head to see a red-haired girl with a pink hair bow run down the hall.

Kainatrol teleported into the Etherium and stormed over to Mekuramast. He looked up, bored, from making a Hidoinaa come out of his hat.

"What now? You couldn't find it?"

"Don't give me that," she snapped. "You knew this whole time that Pretty Cure were back."

"They're not back," he shrugged, twirling his wand. "It's not the same Pretty Cure."

"You did know!" She smacked the small Hidoinaa with her riding crop, sending it scurrying back into the hat. "Tell me who they are and why they're here this time!"

Mekuramast put his hat back on and turned his back to her. "You know better than that." He began to walk off. "A magician never tells what he knows."


	3. The Enemy is a Panty Thief?

Another enemy had emerged already in the past few days. Kainatrol, a woman in a white and red suit, had appeared to other members of the Lily Class and used mind control to try to track down a Moon Piece. At the same time, Ogata Mia, a classmate, had screamed at Asa and revealed that everybody gossiped about her escapism, and Yoko had said something about seeing another strange woman confronting Kainatrol and resisting her powers. Moreover, when they transformed into Pretty Cure to save Mia from Kainatrol, she just vanished without fighting. At this point, Kawada Asa was in a very bad mood.

Now, five pairs of her panties out of the total of ten that she owned had vanished off the clothesline hanging from the apartment balcony.

"Mooom!" Asa turned her head backwards, pushing a piece of blue hair out of the way. "Someone took-"

"Asa, keep it down!" Inside the apartment, Kawada Chikane huffed and picked up her bag. "You'll bother the neighbours at this rate. If something blew off in the wind, you can find something else to wear and then look for the missing clothes later. I can't help you right now, I've got work!" She ran out the door into the hallway, leaving Asa on the balcony to pout.

"You know what?" She opened up her transformation phone and looked at Starry, the little orange creature, inside it.

"What ~susu?"

"This is the worst week ever."

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 3: The Enemy is a Panty Thief? Won't This Raise the Rating?

"Yeah, did you hear?"

"Of course I did! Isn't it creepy?"

Apparently, Asa hadn't been the only one to lose her undergarments that night. The halls and classrooms of Clair Academy were buzzing with rumours about panties being stolen from clotheslines, not just in her area, but all over town. Without their homeroom teacher present, the girls of the Lily Class were sitting on desks and standing in circles, whispering to one another.

"You know, I bet it's nothing," Hoshi shrugged, leaning away from Asa and towards the clique who had gathered just in front of them. "Just one of those stupid boys from the Rose Class on a dare."

Fujisawa Suzu, a bold girl who managed to ace every class without going to cram school, leaned back and twirled one of her dark green pigtails around her finger. "What, you mean like Nakayama's brother or that what's-his-name guy with the hair dye?"

Omemi Emiru adjusted her black, round glasses, allowing them to gleam in the classroom's fluorescent light. "That would be Yokote Haruka-san. It sounds likely enough, given that he recently got caught trying to look in the girls' change room, but you never know."

Izumi Misaki tilted her head to one side. "But stealing panties not even a week after he got caught with that? The guy would have to be an idiot."

"He'd have to be an idiot," chimed Misaki Izumi beside her, tilting her head to the other side. "But maybe he is an idiot."

"He is an idiot," Izumi Misaki replied. "Anyone like that is an idiot."

In their corner, Yukari turned to Yoko from listening to the gaggle of other girls. "Hey, Yoko, aren't you worried? This guy could take your panties, too, you know."

Yoko shook her head. "It's not my panties I'm worried about. We don't even have a clothesline. I am concerned about the other students, though. They shouldn't have to live in fear of this person, whoever he is."

Yukari laughed a bit. "Come on, Yoko, you're not even the class rep, but you act responsible for everyone else anyway."

"I did run, you know." She frowned.

"After I had to push you." The other girl facepalmed and ran a hand over the top of her head to her crown braid. "They would have voted for you if you'd been a little more approachable."

Yoko sweatdropped. "Again, Yukari? I'm not some scary monster, even if you seem to think that everyone else -"

"Morning, everyone!" The door burst open, and all the girls rushed to their seats. A black-haired woman in a crisp blue business suit - much too formal for a teacher, but she wore that sort of thing regardless - walked in with a plastered smile on her face.

"Morning, Ami-sensei..." said the class, with a few "morning, Nakata-sensei"s in there from the newer students.

Ami-sensei kept up the fake smile and plunked a pile of papers and folders on her desk. "Now, I know we're all talking about the latest gossip, but if I hear anything about panty thieves in this class, someone's going to regret it, okay?" Her left eye twitched a few times.

Ogata Mia raised a hand from her front-row desk. "Ami-sensei?"

Twitch. "Yes?"

"They stole yours, too, didn't they?"

Ami-sensei turned blue with shock and sunk into her chair, wailing. "This is a nightmare! I'm too old for this! A teacher shouldn't have to suffer the same pain as a student! Otherwise, why would I have even come here? I should have picked a job that paid better, but oh, no, I had to think that it would be fun to be a teacher! Now I'm just reliving the pain and despair of having my panties stolen off the line like some teenage girl, and furthermore, my students don't even respect me! Life isn't fair! I shouldn't deal with this! I deserve a promotioooon!"

The students looked at each other, exchanging "thought so"s, shrugs and short laughs. Ami-sensei sobbed into her sleeve.

After school, Asa had supposedly left the building like normal, but ducked into the elevator when no one was looking and ran out and back to the classroom when everyone had gone. As expected, Yoko was waiting there for her.

"There you are, Kawada-san." Yoko pulled her transformation phone out of her bag and opened it up. "So it's my turn tonight?"

"Yes ~susu!" Starry popped out of Asa's phone and bounced over to the other girl. "Have you seen anything suspicious today, Yoko?"

"Absolutely." She nodded. "You've heard about it around the school, right?"

Asa's ears perked up. "Not really. What is it? A store that appeared and became really popular overnight? Or an idol who's having her shows sabotaged? All I've heard about is that dumb old panty thief."

Yoko sweatdropped. "Actually, it is the panty thief."

Asa pulled back and made a face. "Uh... do you really think that has anything to do with the Etherium? The stalker did, but that was one time!"

Yoko glared. Asa shut up.

Starry blinked at the both of them. "Yoko has a point ~susu. We should probably start investigating that, even if it's not likely. After all, even if I know why they attacked the Garden of Days, I don't know anything about who the people of the Etherium are ~susu."

The blue-haired girl shifted and looked out the window, almost expecting another 'stalker' to appear. "Well... I guess they might be panty thieves."

"Then it's settled." Yoko held up her phone, and Starry jumped into it. "Tonight, we'll go around the areas of town where the thief appeared before. He'll probably be back looking for more panties."

Asa bit her lip. At least she lived in one of those areas. "Are you sure he won't go somewhere he hasn't been?"

The grey-haired girl nodded. "Kawada-san, think about it. The panty thief has been stealing from clotheslines. I live in the northeast, where he hasn't been, and I can tell you that most of the people there use dryers."

"I guess." She got up and put her transformation phone away. "I don't have a real phone, so Starry can help you find me, okay?" Asa ran out of the room.

Yoko stared at where she had been and blinked. "She doesn't have a phone?"

Binbeat, the young boy in a rumpled white and green Etherium suit that looked far too itchy and uncomfortable, banged on the keys of an organ that wasn't in the void the previous day. A few steps behind him was a pile comprised of things that were also not in the Etherium before, these being many different pairs of women's undergarments.

"I'm awesome! I'm awesome!" He scream-sang, pounding on the keys of the rusty old instrument without a care for tune or assonance. The offensive noise would echo through the Etherium, but things like sound only mattered just enough to function. It was like that with everything. Time, space, all of it existed just enough that the void wouldn't implode, and little enough that it could still be called a place of nothing.

Mekuramast materialized behind him. "Awesome or not, that awful din will bother the Boss if you keep this up."

Binbeat stopped and swung his legs around so that he was facing the magician. "Nah, it'll be fine. Boss won't get mad if I grab all the Moon Pieces from that town. Look at everything I already got!"

The young man turned his head towards the panty heap and adjusted his bejeweled eye mask, frowning. "I see. Forgive me if I say that your... collection would be easier to obtain than the Moon Pieces." He looked back at the child. "You did hear from that animal tamer, didn't you?"

"Geez, just say her name." Binbeat stood up on his piano bench and stretched his arms out. "Yeah, Kainatrol told me Pretty Cure was back. No way they're as tough as the old Pretty Cure, though. They're brand new. It's fine."

Mekuramast made a face, and then cringed as Binbeat sat down on the keys of the organ itself, making another terrible noise. "Pretty Cure is Pretty Cure nonetheless. On the subject of Kainatrol, however, if you knew who I was talking about, I don't see a problem."

Binbeat yawned. "You two have been fighting for a hundred and fifty years, or something. It's boring by now."

"Tsk," the young man said. "How would you know? You've only been with us for ninety-five."

"Whatever," Binbeat said. "I'm gonna get a Moon Piece. Maybe some more panties." He and his organ disappeared, leaving the underwear pile.

Mekuramast facepalmed. "Children."

"Takashiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"

"I'm comin', I'm comin'!" Yoko's twin brother groaned and walked to the door from the kitchen. "What do you want?"

Yoko, in a worn old T-shirt that her parents would never let her step out of the house in, was leaning into the house from the door to the garage. "Takashi, did you take my wrench?"

"Which one?" He shrugged. "You've got, like, twenty of them."

"The one that's missing." Yoko glared icicles at him. "I've got them colour-coded and clearly labelled, and number sixteen isn't where I put it!"

Takashi smirked. "I grew up with you, sis. The whole 'Ice Queen Nakayama' staring isn't gonna work on me."

"You're calling me that, too?" Yukari was so going to get it for this.

"Go find your wrench," Takashi said, walking out the door beside the one that Yoko was halfway out of. "I'm going to the gym."

"Takashi, get back here!"

A little voice came from the garage. "Yoko!"

Yoko blanched and shut the door tight. She ran down the steps over to the family car, where Starry, in his real form, was waving a pink wrench with the number 16 taped onto it.

"Yoko, I found this behind the radio ~susu!" He offered it up to her.

She sighed and took it. "Geez! He always hides my stuff!"

The little orange thing peered around the garage as Yoko put her tool back. Flattened cardboard boxes lay underneath the car to catch any drips of oil or grease as she worked on it. Open tool kits sat on one side of her work area, and boxes with new and salvaged car parts were scattered on the other. "What's all this ~susu?"

Yoko blushed and turned her head aside. "Car stuff. I guess you could say it's my secret hobby. No one knows except my family. It's too weird for a girl like me to be into fixing and working on cars."

Starry tilted his head. "Why's that ~susu?"

"Look," Yoko said. "You know how Kawada-san watches kids' shows with spandex and superheroes, right? And how everybody knows that, even though she only transferred in this year, and people avoid her and talk about her behind her back, right? That's the last thing I want to have happen to me."

Starry petted her hand with a small paw and frowned. "Asa is very nice, even if people think she's strange ~susu. It's the same with people thinking you're scary, Yoko."

Yoko groaned. "Even you say people think of me that way?"

"Yoko!" came a voice from inside the house. "Supper!"

"That's my dad," she sighed. "Starry, get back in the phone, okay?"

Kawada Chikane rushed through the small apartment, buttoning the cleaning uniform for her night job with one hand while picking up her things with the other. "Now, Asa, you know what to do. Instant ramen's in the cupboard, the microwave's working again, I'll be home at one so you'd better be in bed before then..."

Asa tried to stand in her mother's path. "Mom, I've been trying to talk to you all day! There's a panty thief and -"

"Asa, I'm sorry, but I don't have time right now." Chikane dodged around her daughter, thrusting her half-empty coffee cup into her hands, and ran to the apartment door. "I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?" She checked all her things and left.

Asa slumped her shoulders and turned to stare at the door slowly closing, her mother already gone. "You never do." She checked her transformation phone - okay, Yoko's was still out of range - and then the clock. Wait, did I even set a time to meet Nakayama-san? With a shrug, she went for the instant ramen in the cupboard.

After one change of clothes into something presentable and a half-hearted excuse about going to see a friend, Yoko was running through the residential areas with a purse on one shoulder and her transformation phone in her hand in front of her. "How far is it?"

"Not that far ~susu," Starry said. Asa's signal had just appeared on the top screen.

"I haven't even been here before." Yoko stopped and looked up and around. It was a residential area, not as nice as the one she lived in, and just past the school. There was someone building something on a small deck. Wait, was that...

"Ami-sensei?" Yoko quickly stuffed her transformation phone into her pocket.

The teacher looked up from her work and waved. "Nakayama-san! Don't mind me, I'm just setting a trap~"

"...a trap?" Yoko raised an eyebrow at it. From what she could see, it was set up to drop a bucket on the head of anyone who would touch the clothesline. It was also clunky, extremely obvious, and put together backwards so that the bucket would actually fly in the opposite direction and end up in a tree. She had to wonder about this woman.

"Of course!", she said. "For that deplorable panty thief who's been through the neighbourhood! Take my underwear, will you?"

Yoko sweatdropped. "You go do that." She started to walk away. "It's backwards, by the way."

"Huh?" Ami-sensei blinked and looked it over. Yoko could hear a "Noooooooo!" as she walked away and brought her phone back out.

"Your teacher is kind of weird ~susu," Starry said. "It reminds me of how Asa reacted when she found out what Pretty Cure really was ~susu."

Yoko shrugged. "She's always been like that-" She suddenly halted, looking up and around with a bit of a quiver in her eye.

"Huh?" Starry asked.

Yoko turned the phone around so that the little orange creature could see the dusty, overgrown, littered space in front of them. "Starry... are you sure that we have to go this way?"

"That's the park Asa goes through to get home from school ~susu! Even if the tracking device were broken, this would still be the right way ~susu!"

Yoko shook a little, still mostly keeping her confident face on. "Do you even know where this is, Starry?"

He paused. "Hm... That sign over there says it's Sapphire Park."

"Exactly!" Yoko snapped. "We're all the way on the south end of town! It's run down and looks awful from here on, and it's probably dangerous! My parents would never let me go anywhere near here!"

"Huh?" Starry looked very strange stretching his head out of the phone to crane his neck back at the petrified girl. "But it's perfectly safe ~susu. Asa lives right down there in the Morning Garden Apartments ~susu."

"She lives there?", Yoko asked, as if any apartment block on that side of town was not, in fact, intended for living in unless you were a chemically mutated rat on drugs.

"Of course ~susu." Starry nodded. "Let's go ahead!"

"No way." Yoko turned the phone around and looked again at the tracking display. "I'm not taking one step past that park. Let's wait for Kawada-san to come to us."

A woman leaned against the window, twirling her red hair - lighter than Kainatrol's, but darker than Mia's. She tilted her head, holding the receiver of the phone with her other hand.

"Yes, I'm sure. ...Yes. I saw them transform myself. Hiding in between the potted plants outside the strip mall. Honestly. ...What? No, I don't know who they are. All the school kids look the same to me these days. They're definitely from Clair Academy, though, unless they went out and made knockoffs of the uniform to look like they go to a nicer school than they actually do. Do kids still do that these days? ...Yes, she was there. ...Yes. All right, just keep a look out." She hung up the phone. "This is exactly what I don't need."

Yoko shifted on the bench outside of Sapphire Park. She clung to her phone and glared at anyone who might pass by, fully ready to start screaming and running the second they talked to her. There hadn't been more than two or three people at all, though, and they'd barely even looked at Yoko before deciding that there was something wrong with someone so apparently antisocial. This hadn't made her feel any better.

"You know, if I get murdered within the next fifteen minutes, I'm holding you fully responsible," she hissed.

Starry gulped. "Look at the display ~susu!" he said. "Asa's right here!"

"What?" Yoko jolted her head up. Sure enough, a blue-haired girl, still in her school uniform (did she ever bother to change once she got home?), was running out the front gates of Sapphire Park. Asa stopped about a meter away from Yoko, teetering on the edge of the sidewalk.

"Nakayama-san! Starry!" Asa wobbled backwards and quickly stepped forward onto solid concrete.

"There you are, Kawada-san." Yoko stood up and brushed off her pants, trying to look as confident as she did at school. "Let's transform and look for this panty thief."

"Transform now ~susu?" Starry tilted his head up at her.

Yoko glared. "It'll be safer."

Asa blinked. "Huh? Safer?"

"Can you just shut up and do it?" Yoko said. Asa gulped and drew out her cards. Yoko did the same and looked around the block.

"No witnesses. Let's go."

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The sequence began as it had the previous times. When the lights and strange feelings ended, Cure Night in her asymmetrical blue dress and Cure Sunday in her pink and orange uniform posed and made their speech.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Sunday turned her head to Night. "Wow. I guess we really do do the speech even when nobody's around."

Night sighed. "Let's just find this panty thief."

"Okay!" Sunday crouched down and sprung up above Night's head, the nearby fence, and the nearby trees. She landed on the roof of a small house with a dynamic pose.

Night stared. "What are you doing?"

"Roofhopping!" Sunday turned around to look at her partner and waved. "All heroes do that. We'll be able to find the panty thief way easier."

Night sighed. "Well, at least it'll be safer than walking on the streets." She leapt into the air and landed on the roof with a grimace. "I feel dizzy already."

"Come on!" Sunday began to jump from roof to roof, running with her arms out like an airplane. "Whoohoo!"

"Does she have any idea how stupid she looks?" Night muttered and followed after.

"Moon Piece, Moon Piece!" The child Etherium soldier scream-sang through an alley, chasing off cats with his awful noise. "Where am I gonna find one?"

It was a good question. It wasn't like he could sense them. That was why they kept going on wild chases, but the place they'd landed in was pretty small. Even this poor neighbourhood wasn't all that dangerous, unlike how it would have been in someplace bigger. Of course, if it were dangerous, he'd have no trouble blowing anything up that got in his way. Until he did find a Moon Piece, though, the three pairs of panties that he held triumphantly on a stick like flags were good enough for him. Binbeat marched on, arms swinging at his sides, searching.

Cure Sunday looked down on the alley from the roof of a decrepit house. "Look at that."

Night turned her head and quirked an eyebrow. "Panty thief, huh? Can't believe it turned out to be just some kid."

"No, look!" Sunday pointed furiously at the child. "No school in the whole town has that weird white uniform! It looks like something kids would wear a hundred years ago! And look at that eye mask!"

Night groaned. "Look, kids will wear anything. It doesn't mean..."

"Come on! Fancy white outfit and a jeweled eye mask! Even the colours! That whip lady was red, and the magician guy was blue, and this kid's green!"

"It was a riding crop, that's different from a whip -"

"You know what I mean -"

"What's goin' on?"

The Cures froze in the middle of their bickering and slowly turned their heads. Floating in front of them was the kid, holding his panty flag high in the air.

"Hey!" Cure Sunday jabbed her finger at him. "I told you! I told you, okay?"

"Lucky guess!" Night crossed her arms and tried to hide her embarrassed blush. "What we need to do is get the panties back!"

Binbeat made a face at the two girls. "You're really weird. Don't tell me you guys are the new Pretty Cure. The old ones were way scarier than you."

Night looked at her partner. "What does he mean, old ones?"

"It's too early to ask about that." Sunday shrugged. "It sounds like something you'd find out once the season was almost over."

"This isn't a TV show, okay?"

Binbeat flailed his arms, sending a pair of panties flying from his "flag" into someone's yard. "Hey, you losers, I'm trying to fight you!"

Pretty Cure snapped into a more threatening stance. "Then fight us already!"

"Hahaha, fine!" He jumped backwards in the air and pressed down on something invisible in front of him. The sound of organ keys clashed through the night, and a black diamond appeared, floating in midair like the boy was.

"That's the thing that the magician guy used to make the Hidoinaa!" Sunday pointed at it. "Watch out!"

"You fought Mekuramast?" Binbeat raised his eyebrows. "He never said anything about that. Whatever, that guy's weird. Come on, now face my Hidoinaa!" He whipped the stick in his hands upward, sending the two pairs of panties that were resting on it flying upwards. The diamond shot up after it, merging with one of them in the black light. Once it faded, Binbeat had caught the other pair in his hand, and before them stood a giant pair of white lacy panties with a glowing Halloween-pumpkin face.

"Hidoinaaa!"

Pretty Cure just stared.

"Hidoinaa..."

"...Panties."

Binbeat twirled, sticking the other pair on his head and tossing the twig behind him. "Kyaha! Isn't this the greatest monster you've ever seen?"

Night made a face. "It's something, all right."

Sunday got back into her battle-ready pose. "It doesn't matter what it is, let's fight it!"

The two girls leapt into the air and attacked the Hidoinaa. Sunday kicked it in the face, sending it a little back, but the elastic shot back and sent her flying. She crashed back first onto a concrete roof, moaning and twitching. Night spin-kicked the panty monster, managing to turn it around, and landed back on the building she'd jumped from. She diverted her attention from the Hidoinaa and roofhopped over to her more blindingly coloured counterpart.

"Sunday! Are you okay?" Night knelt by her and began to fumble and try to pick her up. "How badly does it hurt? Is anything broken?"

"Yeah, I'm okay..." Cure Sunday forced herself to sit up, leaning a bit on the other girl.

Night jerked back a little at this, quickly moving back into place to support her. "I don't see how, unless being Pretty Cure suddenly made us indestructible."

"Hidoinaa!"

The two girls gasped and looked up. The forgotten panty monster was now looming over them, its juvenile creator nowhere in sight. "Hidoinaaaa!"

"Oh, no!" Cure Night scooped up her partner in her arms and leapt over the Hidoinaa, landing on another rooftop. She put Sunday down and hesitantly helped her stand.

"I think we can fight it, but we have to make sure not to aim for the elastic!" Sunday rubbed the back of her aching head.

"That's not going to work!" Night punched and kicked the Hidoinaa when it approached them again. "All it's doing is getting knocked back! We need to actually hurt it!" She looked at Cure Sunday. "How did we do that attack again?"

"You mean the finisher?" Sunday kicked the panties. They shrunk back and then dove forward at the two girls, hitting them straight on with the elastic and shooting them into the side of a wall. Now both Cures fell to the ground in enormous pain.

"We can't even hurt this thing." Night gasped and coughed, trying to stand. "It has too much freedom to move. It'll just snap back at us and hit us into a building. Right now, we've taken a lot more damage than it -" Sunday grabbed Night's wrist. "What is it?"

Sunday gestured up at the Hidoinaa. "Can we corner it somewhere?"

Night pulled the two of them up and looked around. Her eyes set on a strange contraption in Nakata Ami's backyard.

"I think so."

Pretty Cure managed to jump over the Hidoinaa again before it crashed into them. They landed behind it and waited for it to turn around.

"There!" Night pointed at the trap. The two girls jumped onto Ami-sensei's deck and stood behind the clothesline. The monster, as usual, shot toward them and plowed straight into the clothesline. The trap sprung. Lights went on, a bucket dropped to pin part of the possessed fabric to the deck, and the monster was pelted with oranges. It started to flail around.

"What just happened?" Sunday asked.

"It'll break out any second now." Night grabbed her hand. "Let's do this!"

"All right!"

The magic circle drew itself behind them as they went through the motions of their incantation.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

The two girls glowed in dark blue. They aimed themselves at the monster, which was now flinging off the bucket trap.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

They flew around the Hidoinaa, hitting it this way and that and burning off the negative aura with their energy. The Pretty Cure comet stopped just long enough for the Hidoinaa to shake off the bucket and float up straight. They flew right into and through it, leaving a large hole in the elastic band. The Hidoinaa burned to a crisp as Pretty Cure landed on their feet on the deck, and the panties that it had been dropped to the ground behind them. The two girls let go of each other's hands, turned around and looked at the remains of the monster.

"Uh... Night?" Sunday glanced over at her.

"What?"

"...Are we gonna have to give these back?"

Clair Academy was abuzz again the next morning. All the girls in the Lily Class were gathered in the centre of the room.

"Hey, hey, did you hear?"

"Did all the panties really go back to their original owners?"

"I don't know about you, but mine are back. I'm scared to wear them without washing them at least fifty times."

"Why not a hundred?"

Yoko excused herself and ran into the janitor's closet. She pulled out her transformation phone and flipped it open. "Starry, can you explain this? We didn't get all the stolen panties back, so why are they going back to their owners?"

Starry yawned. "I don't really know ~susu. Maybe something else happened that we didn't know about. Either way, it's a good thing ~susu."

Yoko sighed. "Well, I guess..."

"Aww, man!" Binbeat grumbled, banging on the keys of his organ. "You guys always spoil my fun!"

Mireyes shook her head and adjusted her white and purple head covering. "Your defeat was inevitable, Binbeat. You had to pay for it."

Tachimany, in single-person form, stretched out. "Those girls came after you for a reason." They changed from one young boy to five teenage girls and mimicked shocked expressions. "How dare you steal those panties!" They burst out laughing and turned into two identical salarymen. "So if you didn't give them back, you'd be Pretty Cure bait for the rest of your life, and you'd drag the rest of us down~!"

Binbeat stuck his tongue out at the shapeshifter and the old fortune teller. "That's a lame excuse. You just wanna make me miserable."

Kainatrol shook her head. "More responsible coworkers. I need them. Now."


	4. What Do You Mean, We're A Team?

It had been a week, and Yoko still ached all over. After all, she'd been thrown into a building multiple times. It was a miracle that she wasn't dead, and her partner had gotten it worse. Did being Pretty Cure make them immortal, or just really hard to kill? Either way, she didn't want to test that out, and she especially didn't want to test it against another stupid-looking monster. If that giant floating pair of lacy panties had finished them off, she'd never have lived it down.

"Why me?"

"Yoko?" Okamoto Yukari put a hand on her shoulder. Yoko jolted out of the daydream.

"Huh? Oh! Yukari!"

Yukari sweatdropped. "Spacing out on the way to school? That isn't like you. The homework must be getting to you."

"You're right," Yoko said. "They really are piling it on... Didn't Ami-sensei mention that she was giving us a big science project, too?"

Yukari nodded and brushed a fallen leaf out of her hair, tugging loose some strands from her crown braid. "Having her for both homeroom and science is a little... Well, it's interesting." She smiled. "Better than some other teachers we've got, though!"

Yoko laughed a bit and pushed her own hair back. "Either way, we'll get through this. It'll be simple!"

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 4: Another School Project? What Do You Mean, We're a Team?

It certainly looked like it would be simple. The classroom was filled with students as usual, all looking up at Ami-sensei. Well, Asa was half-asleep, and Izumi Misaki was passing Misaki Izumi a note, but everybody else was looking at her.

"All right!" The teacher forced a smile and twirled a meter stick in her hand like a baton. "Now, I know you're all very excited about the science project! By that, I mean you're bored and waiting for lunch break, but you should be excited, okay?"

"Yes, Ami-sensei," everyone replied, with a late "yes, Nakata-sensei" once Hoshi shook Asa awake.

"Good!" Ami-sensei crossed her arms, letting her black hair shine in the fluorescent light. "Now, I'm sure you've all prepared for this group project..." Everyone looked around quickly and locked eyes with their closest friends. The teacher twitched. "Hold on a second!"

"Huh?" the girls chorused.

"You're going to have to pick someone other than your usual partner," she said.

"Whaaat?", cried one girl.

"Why?" That was another.

Ami-sensei swept out her arm and pointed the meter stick at her students. "I'm staving off a social injustice!" Any imagination could easily have substituted the Lily Class' room for a wave crashing on a rock behind the teacher. "All you girls have your cliques, don't you? The people you like to hang around with and the people you glare at and push aside! Your best friend forever is all well and good, but you can't just have one friend! Not if you're in my class! By the end of this year, you'll all be model students who are friends with everybody in Clair Academy, and maybe even that other school on the south end of town that's not as good and is likely to get torn down any day now!"

Asa flinched as a few people looked at her. She couldn't tell if it was because she was one of the aforementioned people that everyone hated or because she'd come from that school.

Ami-sensei hoisted herself up on the desk and posed with the meter stick like she was planting a flag on the moon. "This class will be made up of the students that all the other teachers wish they had! They'll all be jealous of me! I'll finally get that promotion!"

The students stared.

She coughed. "Um. Go get your partners. I'll just be getting down from here."

The scramble for partners was somewhat chaotic at first, but didn't seem to work in the way that the young woman in charge had intended. Hoshi apologized to Asa and walked off to the other side of the room, attaching herself to someone instantly. Asa tried to approach a few people, but they quickly turned their heads and moved over to friends they weren't quite as close to as their usual partners. She sighed and drooped her head and shoulders.

"Come on, somebody pick me..."

Someone tapped Asa on the shoulder. She jumped around and stumbled back, bumping into a desk.

"N-Nakayama-san!"

A few partner groups turned around and stared at the scene. Yoko pushed some of her hair back. "I can't go with Yukari," she said. "It makes sense if I go with you."

Asa gulped and looked aside. "Um... sure! Yeah! Okay, partners it is!"

Misaki Izumi stared and turned back to Izumi Misaki, who was standing next to her despite not being her official partner. "Those two? Does this even make sense?"

"It makes sense," the other girl said. "Besides Okamoto, people are scared of Nakayama."

"Ohh, people are scared of Nakayama," repeated the first. "And besides Kondou, no one likes Kawada."

"Yup, no one likes Kawada." The second nodded. "So they can't be with anyone but each other."

"No, they can't." Misaki Izumi looked over at Izumi Misaki's partner, a girl with short green hair and black glasses. "What do you think, Omemi-san?"

"Yeah, what do you think, Omemi-san?"

Omemi Emiru adjusted her glasses. "It's interesting."

Binbeat stood on his hands in front of Mekuramast. "Guess what I found out."

The magician gave a brisk sigh and adjusted his eye mask. Children were annoying sometimes. "What is it, Binbeat?"

The organist started walking backwards on his hands. "I found out you fought Pretty Cure and didn't tell us."

Mekuramast was taken aback by this, but quickly resumed his regular expression. "Oh, you did, did you?"

"Yep!" The kid seemed proud of himself. "So, why didn't you say? C'mon, tell me!"

Another sigh. "Binbeat, you ought to give up. A magician does keep his secrets, you know."

"Nyaaah." Binbeat stuck his tongue out and stood back up on his feet like a normal person. "I bet you just wanted to look better than Kainatrol. Whatever. I'm gonna go out looking for Moon Pieces again."

Mekuramast shook his head. "As long as you don't steal any more panties."

Binbeat looked hopeful. "Bras?"

"No."

"What about those little things that look like panties but they're not, I never saw those before, I don't think they were invented the last time we were in this world and -"

Mekuramast groaned. "Absolutely not. I will not have thongs cluttering the Etherium."

"Whatever." Binbeat teleported out, leaving the magician to wonder just why they'd picked that boy up in the first place.

"Has everyone got their partners?" Ami-sensei walked between the rows of desks, writing down the pairs on a clipboard. "Good! Now, you have until the end of the week to choose what your project will be about, and a month and a half to complete it. Does everyone understand?"

"Yes, Ami-sensei," chorused the class again before looking back at their partners. They began to throw around ideas of moldy bread, baking soda volcanoes, roller coasters constructed from building sets, and everything else that they'd all seen and done before. Yoko sighed and turned to Asa, who was chewing on the end of her pen.

"I don't want to do something overdone. Do you have any ideas, Kawada-san?"

Asa looked to the side. "Well, a couple... I mean, I wanted to see if it were really possible to make the DaiVan!"

Her enthusiasm was creeping back into her voice again, Yoko noted, and they weren't even talking about Pretty Cure. "What's a DaiVan?"

Asa moved to face Yoko and smiled. "It's the most awesome thing ever! It's what DaiFighter and his friends use to get around. It has infinite space on the inside, it can cross between dimensions, it can fly, it can compress itself to squish through tight spaces, it shoots lasers out the signal lights, and it runs on BURNING SPIRIT!" Everyone turned to stare at that last part. She didn't seem to notice. "Oh, yeah, and it has a vending machine on the inside."

Was she serious? Yoko rubbed her forehead. Well, cars she could do, and if anyone asked, it was Asa's idea. "Fine, let's do that."

Asa froze. "...really?"

"Might as well." Yoko pushed some hair back with a shrug. "We'll need at least five reference books. Can you come to the town library after school? The one here will be packed."

The blue-haired girl shifted around in her seat. But, come on, the DaiVan. She nodded and gave the thumbs up. "Yeah! Sure! All right!"

Yoko blinked. That was odd. "Well, then, after school."

"Are you crazy?" Hoshi felt Asa's forehead at their small, empty corner table in the lunchroom. "Nakayama again?"

"I didn't have a choice!" Asa pouted. "Are you trying to be the friend police all of a sudden? I thought you wanted me to try and fit in with more people besides you."

"It's not that!" Hoshi said. "It's just... come on. She doesn't talk to anyone. Even you never talked to her before, and I know you're not shy, transfer student or not. Now you're meeting her at lunch, you're staying behind after school -" Asa flinched. She'd hoped that Hoshi hadn't noticed that - "and now you're doing your project with her. What's going on?"

"It's just a coincidence!" Asa swallowed down another mouthful of rice. "Don't worry so much, okay? She's not going to eat me or anything, and besides, you get to spend more time with other people." 'And save your reputation,' she thought, mind still on what Mia had said a few weeks before and what the class had whispered about that morning.

Hoshi shook her head. "...well, it's not like you're doing anything bad. I just worry sometimes."

"Come on!" Asa forced a laugh. "I'm perfectly fine."

The day was over again. Starry hopped out of Yoko's phone in a corner of Kazahana City Library. "Hey, why are we here today ~susu?"

"We need to be here for school," Yoko whispered. She looked at Asa. "What are we going to do about this... DaiVan thing?"

"The DaiVan ~susu?" The little orange creature perked up. "You're building your own? I like the little vending machine."

Yoko stared at him, then at Asa.

Asa sweatdropped. "He likes to watch TV with me on the weekends that I have him."

"Never mind." Yoko pushed her long hair back again. "Start thinking of ideas for what we're going to do. I'll go get the books." She walked into the appropriate aisle and started collecting research books without even looking.

Binbeat hung from his legs upside down off the edge of the library roof. He gave a big yawn, swung himself up and summoned the large, old organ, which was decorated with the same green jewels as he had on his mask. He was about to press down on the keys when someone teleported beside him.

"Bwaaah!" The child threw up his arms and spun to the side. There stood the Mystical Seer, Mireyes, the fortune teller. She was an aged woman, wearing a billowing white dress with a lavender jacket and star-adorned veil. White for the Etherium, purple for herself. The customary eye mask didn't suit her, but she did have her sheer head covering pulled over her eyes to make up for it. As Binbeat had found out once when he planted banana peels all over the floor, yes, she could indeed still see.

The Youthful Musician crossed his arms. "What're you doing here, old lady?"

Mireyes put her palm to her forehead. "Were you anyone else, I would have ended you for that kind of treatment. Besides, you shouldn't be saying it in the first place. You'll start to age again if you spend too much time out of the Etherium, you know. It's only there that time doesn't matter. It still works on us here."

"I know, I know." Binbeat dropped onto the piano bench.

"Speaking of which," added Mireyes, "what do you think you're doing here, young man?"

"Looking for Moon Pieces." He stretched out his arms. "What's it look like?"

"And have you found one?" Mireyes took the small boy's grimace as her answer. "In that case, why were you about to attack when you don't even know if there is one here?"

Busted. Binbeat scrambled through his mind for an excuse. "Well... I saw those girls from last week there! Yeah, the new Pretty Cure! Well, the only one you'd know, you only showed up twenty years ago, but they're new. Those were them, all right!" He sat there, looking quite proud of himself.

The old woman's eyes began to glow behind her veil. "Is that true, or did you just make it up?" A purple magic circle drew itself above her head.

Binbeat gulped. "Come on, you really don't have to use Future Sight! Don't you trust me? I saw them!"

A vision appeared in her mind: a flash of light and two girls in strange uniforms. Mireyes blinked the glow out of her eyes, and the magic circle vanished.

"It's your lucky day," she said, laughing, even. "Just send in a Hidoinaa. You don't need to attack on your own this time."

"Huh? They're actually here?" Binbeat blinked. "Wait, yeah, of course, they're here! I'm awesome! Oh, yeah!"

Mireyes shook her head. "Why do I tolerate this from you?"

Yoko set her fifth pile of books on the table. "We've got the basic and advanced mechanics of automotives, then we have specific books on vans, the physics of motors, a few theoretical texts that would cover how it could be possible to have infinite space in the van, ten on laser weapons, some explaining how to shrink the van, physics books that mention why we don't have flying cars, all the major auto magazines, and an article on vending machines."

Asa gaped. So did Starry, who was now in her phone and hanging from her hand. "Whoa."

"Whoa?" Yoko put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. "We've gathered more books than the library will let two people take out at one time, probably more than they'll let four take out, at that. We have enough material to write a DaiVan encyclopedia. This group seriously needs to narrow the focus, or else this project will be sprawling all over the place. All you can say is 'whoa'?"

"Hidoinaa!", something called back.

"'It's awful' isn't much better! We need-" Yoko stopped. Asa's vacant stare and pointed finger directed her to turn around and face a tall, wooden card catalogue. It had not been this tall before. It had also not had a face before.

"Hidoinaaaa!", it repeated.

Asa stood up from her seat. "Let's run."

"You can't run in a library!"

She pointed to the crowd of patrons fleeing out the door. "They're doing it!"

This seemed to be acceptable to Yoko. The two of them dashed off in the direction that the civilians were running at first. Asa suddenly stopped, yanking Yoko's wrist back with her, and dragged her back into a run right under the legs of the Hidoinaa.

It lumbered around, knocked over a bookshelf in the process, and scratched its head. "...Hidoinaa?"

Yoko and Asa ducked behind a book cart until the staff member evacuating the place passed by. They scrambled into the handicap elevator and quickly shut the door.

"How much - gasp - time - do we have?" Yoko panted and leaned against the wall for support.

Something banged against the door, leaving a series of dents. Asa pointed. "Not much." She drew out her phone and Moon Card. "Let's go!"

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The light show came on again, over in an instant like always. The damaged doors of the handicap elevator forced themselves open, revealing the two transformed Cures posing to the monster.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"To ensure a peaceful era!"

The card catalogue monster roared. "Hidoinaa!" It reeled back to launch an attack of book cards. Cure Night paid no heed to this and stomped past her partner, focused directly on the threat.

"YOU!"

The monster paused. "Hidoinaa?"

Night stood her ground and pointed right at it. "You monsters don't have any respect for the library! First of all, you made too much noise! Even normal levels of noise aren't acceptable in here! Nobody needs to hear 'hidoiiiiiiinaaaaaaa' when they're trying to study! What if someone had entrance exams? What then?"

Sunday gaped. "Uh, Nakayama-san..."

Night ignored her. "Second of all, look at the mess you made! Elevator doors aren't cheap! They'll need fixing! What's more, you've scattered the contents of the card catalogue all over the library, and-" She jabbed a finger in the direction of the fallen shelf. "You- you knocked over that bookshelf! What if you broke that, too? What then? Libraries live on donations, you know! City council never gives them enough!"

Sunday's phone visibly sweatdropped. "It'll all go back to normal when you defeat this monster ~susu..."

The silver-haired Cure marched right up to the Hidoinaa and glared up into its glowing eyes. "Your trying to get the Moon Pieces is bad enough, considering that they don't belong to you, but what's worse than that is that you're disturbing everybody else! Your creators are just as bad, hypnotizing people and stealing panties and what have you! I can't allow such things to happen!"

The Hidoinaa scratched its dark wooden head. "Hidoi...naa."

"Well?" Cure Night crossed her arms. "Aren't you going to fix it?"

It stared for a moment.

She stared back.

It opened all of its drawers and sent a rain of book lists flying at them. "Hidoinaaaaa!"

"Night!" Sunday ran forward, but was hit back and side to side by paper cards. Night's eyes began to fill with liquid rage.

"You... are not going to do this again!" She launched herself up into the air, a far cry from the unathletic Nakayama Yoko of a few minutes before, and spun around to kick the monster. It skidded back and she landed on the floor. Immediately, Night ran after it again and began punching and kicking at it.

"Hey, what about me?" Sunday grumbled and pulled herself up from a bruised, blindingly coloured heap on the floor.

"Sunday!" Night called back as she kicked the giant card catalogue down again. "Come on, we need to finish it off!"

"That's my line!" The pink and orange Cure ran over, clutching her aching side, to the black and blue one. They grabbed each other's hands and stood to face the monster as instant runes formed behind them.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

The burning blue aura engulfed them again, and they stepped back just to launch themselves at the recovering Hidoinaa.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

The Cure-comet shot right into the monster, burning off its dark aura, and broke right through it. When they landed, the Hidoinaa burned up, leaving only the card catalogue, and everything calmly reverted to normal.

From behind a far shelf, someone nodded and walked off.

The Lily Class was, as usual, abuzz with gossip the next day. Everyone knew that the library had been evacuated, but no one seemed to know why, or keep their story straight. One person said it was a gas leak, another said that someone had caused a disaster knocking down all the shelves, someone else was saying that it was a fire drill, and where one story made it to your ears, ten more passed by. After school, the two girls and their shared mascot met as usual in the classroom.

"I don't get it," Asa grumbled as she dug out her books on car motors. "They all saw the monster, so why would they lie?"

"It's easy," Yoko frowned. "Nobody wanted to admit it until someone else did. It's the way some people are."

"Don't worry ~susu." Starry patted Asa's fluffy blue hair. "If less people know about Pretty Cure, then the job will probably be easier ~susu."

"Still!" Asa sighed. "I want to be famous and have my own TV show and merchandise from this!"

'There's something wrong with this girl,' Yoko thought. She sorted out the car books and clapped for Asa's attention. "Let's get working on this project."


	5. Moon Piece at School?

The attacks just kept coming, didn't they? Thanks to Ami-sensei's bright idea to get the students to branch out, Yoko and Asa were now together in a science project for the next month and a half. When they went to the library to check out the books they needed, Binbeat, the annoying eternal child, sent a Hidoinaa into the building to look for Moon Pieces. The two of them had to fight it, and what was more, it had ruined the whole library. Yes, it went back to normal when they defeated the monster, but it was the principle of the thing. Yoko wished that the monsters would listen when she lectured them.

"I'll never forgive you for this!"

Yoko snuggled into the bedsheets. "Yeah, me neither..." She froze and her eyes shot open. "Who said that? Who's in my room?"

"It's just the TV ~susu," Starry chirped. Yoko pulled herself into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. The little orange creature was sitting at the foot of her bed, watching her in-room TV.

"It's Sunday morning." Yoko tugged her fluffy comforter around her shoulders. "What's there on TV to watch? Evangelists?"

"Are you kidding ~susu?" Starry pointed at the man in a red bodysuit and mask on the TV screen. "DaiFighter is on every Sunday ~susu!"

DaiFighter pointed at his enemy. "You would even attack the school? There's nothing you'll stop at unless I stop you myself!"

Yoko tugged knots out of her long grey hair and tried to lay down and sleep again. "Kawada-san is being a bad influence. Don't wake me up in the mornings like that, okay?"

"Hey!" Starry waved his stubby little arms. "DaiFighter is a noble warrior ~susu!"

Yoko stuffed her head under her pillow.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 5: Moon Piece at School? You Know, If You're Wrong Again...

The white void with its ornately carved walls held another meeting, like it had a number of weeks before. In front of the usual group, the air rippled as a voice emerged from nowhere.

"We're beginning to have a problem." The voice echoed throughout the room that was a world. "Although they don't seem to be much of a threat, the fact remains that Pretty Cure has revived. They are not the same people as the previous group, as Kainatrol and Binbeat have determined, but they still possess the power to protect their world and the Garden of Days."

Binbeat stretched out his arms and tapped his foot. "C'mon, they beat a couple Hidoinaa, but if they were fighting us, we'd squash 'em."

"Don't talk out of turn!" Kainatrol hissed.

The air rippled again. "We are not prepared to take that risk. At the moment, those two girls are of a lower priority than gathering the thirteen Moon Pieces from their town. Besides the power that they would grant us, having them would also mean completing the Moon Dial that we retrieved from the Garden of Days, returning to us the power to reset time and add worlds to the void."

Mekuramast stepped forward and gave a sweeping stage bow, fluttering his cape behind him. "With all due respect, Boss, the previous Pretty Cure were the ones who took the Moon Dial back from us twenty-five years ago. Shouldn't we get them out of the way first?"

"Do not question me on this matter." The voice got louder and the ripples stronger. "There is a high chance of damaging time irreparably and losing everything that the Etherium has done."

Mekuramast nodded and stepped back into line, ignoring glares from Kainatrol. He didn't see how just getting rid of Pretty Cure before going for the Moon Pieces would do anything to the flow of time, but when the Boss said something, you didn't talk back.

Tachimany shifted into twelve soldiers with glittery swords. "Still, it makes us wonder." They turned into five teenage girls with white and gold school uniforms. "Those girls are looking for the Moon Pieces, too. What if they get them before we do?"

Kainatrol slapped her open hand with her riding crop. "Tachimany, stay in one form when we're speaking to you! It's distracting to have you constantly transforming and multiplying!"

Tachimany stretched out, alternating sentences between the five bodies who currently shared their mind.

"Kainatrol."

"You're an animal tamer."

"What kind of performer -"

"-can't deal with a little distraction?"

"The show must go on, you know."

Kainatrol clenched her fist over the handle of the riding crop. "Don't mock me."

Tachimany shifted into their second form, two salarymen. "Don't act like you're in charge. The Boss is." They gestured to the air in front of them, which rippled but said nothing.

"I'm not!" The red-haired woman glared.

The salarymen shrugged. "Even with your mind-control powers, you can't control everything."

The Boss spoke again. "Tachimany had a point before they were interrupted. However, we don't even know who the new Pretty Cure are, much less whether they already have Moon Pieces. Focus first on retrieving those and then on fighting the girls."

Mekuramast adjusted his eye mask.

When Yoko finally woke up, it was around one in the afternoon. She'd finished her homework, and a few calls had determined that Yukari was busy working at her parents' store, so there was one thing left to do. She left the house, purse packed with everything she could possibly need to live for a week on a remote island, and walked to the post office.

There were no businesses in her neighbourhood. Besides the shrine, there were nothing but houses. Yoko had to walk all the way down to the Seiki Open Mall just to mail off an order for car parts. She wished for the day that she were old enough to own a credit card, but until then, she just had to deal with the risk of someone seeing her. No one had so far, or at least no one had asked what she was mailing. This time was the same, thankfully. She just paid, sent off the envelope, walked out of the post office and...

"Ouch!"

...walked right into Asa, sending her stumbling back. Yoko grabbed her wrist and yanked her up to keep her from falling, blinked, and let go.

"Nakayama-san!" Asa stepped back a little, flushed. "Sorry! But hey, you're just the person I wanted to see!"

Yoko tilted her head. "I am?"

"Yeah! Come on!" Asa gestured to a small alley and ran off. Yoko blinked and drew out her transformation phone with Starry inside. If she was being this outgoing, it had to have something to do with Pretty Cure.

Yoko followed Asa to the alley and looked around nervously - it was a habit. "What is it?"

Asa gave the thumbs up. "I think I figured out where the next Moon Piece could be!"

Starry popped open Yoko's phone and looked out. "Really ~susu? Where is it ~susu?"

Asa's eyes sparkled. "It's got to be somewhere inside Clair Academy!"

"What?" Yoko gaped. "Inside the school?"

Starry hopped out of the phone and landed on the ground at normal size. "Just like today's episode of DaiFighter ~susu!"

"No way." Yoko facepalmed. "No, no, no, you are not going to go off on random theories based on what you saw on TV this morning. Why would it be at school?"

"Why wouldn't it be at school?" Asa crossed her arms and pouted. "Think about it! The last one was at the clock tower, wasn't it? The others should be at important places, too! Besides, lots of people come to school every day, so if they had it, they could have dropped it there. Another thing: remember a couple days ago? There was a Hidoinaa at the library for no good reason! I think they're looking for the Moon Pieces everywhere in town! Shouldn't we be looking around just as well?"

"Well..."

Starry nodded and hopped over to Asa. "She's right ~susu! Even if we don't find a Moon Piece there, at least we'll have covered a lot of ground looking ~susu!"

Yoko slumped over and sighed. "I guess there isn't any harm in it."

Asa blinked a few times. Yoko had actually listened to her.

The Master Magician sat atop a roof, examining his eye mask in his hand. Of course, he'd lied during the meeting, though he hadn't actually said anything. He knew exactly who those two girls were, and he knew for sure that they already had at least one Moon Piece. He hadn't even said that he'd seen them until that brat, Binbeat, found out - presumably from Pretty Cure themselves - that they'd fought.

Mekuramast was a magician. They kept their secrets.

As long as the others didn't know what those two girls looked like before transforming, they couldn't track them down and steal their Moon Piece. He placed the jewel-studded eye mask back upon his face and looked down at the street.

Wait, there they were. What were those two girls doing? Certainly, they were headed somewhere, and he heard mention of Moon Pieces. If they'd found another one, he'd have to get there, too.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Yoko clung to the brick wall she was climbing with a look that pleaded 'come on, don't let anyone come by and look up my skirt'.

"Of course!" Asa squeezed herself into a half-open classroom window with no such regard for her panties. Yoko heard a crash inside the room before the blue-haired girl stood up, sweatdropped, and opened the window fully. Taking a deep breath, Yoko climbed a little further up and through the window. She panted and gasped for breath.

"I should... take up... a sport," the grey-haired girl wheezed. "This is... embarrassing."

Starry patted Yoko's hand and hopped over to another desk. "Where are we going to look first ~susu?"

"Here, I think." Asa took out her phone and Scan Card and looked around the room. "What would a Moon Piece be hidden as, though?"

"Probably some kind of stone, about the same size as it would be if it weren't hidden," Starry offered - Yoko slashed the Storage Card and drew out the Moon Piece she already had, which fit nicely into her palm - "but I don't know for sure ~susu. I only heard this from our leader when I escaped the Garden of Days ~susu."

"What exactly happened there?" Yoko asked, leaning against the wall for support. "Kawada-san might be used to this -" Asa gulped and shrank back into the nearest desk - "but I still don't quite understand."

Starry sat down on the desk top. "I don't really know all the details ~susu." He frowned. "The Etherium came to the Garden of Days to steal the Moon Dial so that they could regain their power to erase worlds ~susu."

"You said the Moon Dial was where the Moon Pieces are supposed to go," Yoko said. "If the Etherium had it before, then why was it with you?"

"It's because the previous Pretty Cure took it from them ~susu." The little creature smiled.

Asa perked up. "Oh, yeah, the little kid who stole everyone's panties said something like that. Who are they?"

"I don't know ~susu. It was a long time ago ~susu." Starry put a little paw up to the side of his face. "I know that the Garden of Days was attacked by the Etherium back then, and they sent people here to get help because of the legend ~susu."

"A legend of Pretty Cure? How does it go?" Asa propped her head up with her hands. Yoko listened along, having caught her breath.

"It's a legend common to a lot of different worlds ~susu." Starry stood up again. "The world you live in is special because, when another world is in trouble, its power can enter your world ~susu. That's how the two of you received your phones ~susu."

"So that's also what happened with the last people who had this job," Yoko said. "They took the Moon Dial away, therefore making it impossible for the Etherium to control the flow of time on other worlds and add them to their void."

"But now they got it back, except it won't work without all the Moon Pieces, right?" Asa finished.

"Exactly ~susu!" Starry nodded. "We have to find them as soon as we can ~susu!"

"All right!" Asa rose from her chair and slammed her palms on the desk top. "Let's get looking!"

They searched Clair Academy for unusual stone objects to scan with their Scan Cards. Statues in the art room, jewelry in the lost-and-found, and even the doorknobs yielded nothing, but still they continued to search without hesitation.

"I'm not going in there."

"Well, someone has to."

"Do you want to, then?"

"No way!"

"What's going on ~susu?"

"Starry, you're a boy, aren't you? You go into the men's washroom!"

...Almost without hesitation.

They finally arrived back in the hallway near where they had come in.

"We haven't checked the Lily Class' room," Yoko mused. "Let's go there before we declare this a total loss."

'I was going to say that,' Asa thought, 'only a lot less negatively.' She nodded and opened the door to their own classroom.

It looked the same as it did every day. The desks were neatly lined up, and the supplies were stored in the cabinets, mostly locked away. (Hadn't Yukari been on cleanup duty last? She must have been in a hurry, Yoko thought - probably to go shopping.) Asa looked over at some papers piled upon Ami-sensei's desk.

"Hey, what's this?"

"What are you doing?" Yoko snapped, making Asa jump and step back a few paces. "Don't read the teacher's stuff! That could be a test, for all we know!"

Asa gulped. "I was, uh, going to scan the paperweight!" She pointed to a small violet stone cat on top of the pile.

Yoko sighed. "If that's the case, I'll do it." The so-called Ice Queen moved over to the desk and swiped the Scan Card in her transformation phone.

The dial lit up. The screen - where Starry sat when he was inside the phone - read "RETRIEVAL: V" in English. Why? Everything magical is in English. It's a rule across time and genres.

"It's really a Moon Piece ~susu!" Starry pointed repeatedly at the cat-shaped paperweight.

"Great!" Asa went to grab it.

Yoko smacked her hand away. "Are you crazy? We can't steal the teacher's paperweight! We're already bad enough for breaking into the school! Do we have to add another crime to that?"

Asa held her aching hand. "We can't just leave it here..."

"You could use the Copy card ~susu," Starry ventured. "Then you can replace it with an identical paperweight ~susu."

The blue-haired girl looked at her cards and phone. "Wow, these do everything, don't they?"

"Fine," Yoko sighed. "I guess it has to be done..."

Asa drew out the card that bore two identical creatures and slashed it in her phone. The paperweight duplicated itself, just as the little mascot said it would. She picked up the original, which glowed and turned into its true form - a shiny black stone with one polished side, the Roman numeral V carved into it. Finally, Asa slashed the Storage card, illustrated with a cute little treasure chest, and the Moon Piece vanished into storage.

"These things are so cool. We need to give them a name, like... CurePhone or CureDial or something awesome like that."

Yoko frowned. "Let's just get out of here before we have to do anything else illegal."

"I suppose that's my cue to come in."

Asa, Yoko and Starry whirled around to see Mekuramast climb through the window. He stepped onto the floor and twirled his simple wand.

"Two Moon Pieces already. This is impressive."

"They're not for you!" Asa held tightly onto her phone. "You'd just use them against other worlds!"

"How can they not be for me?" The magician looked over the group. "Hundreds of years ago, before your predecessors took the Moon Dial from us, our leader discovered it in the first world that was reduced to a void. We now call that the Etherium."

"You mean the first world that you reduced to a void ~susu!" Starry waved his little arms. "You stole the Moon Dial and destroyed that world while it was unprotected ~susu!"

"I had nothing to do with it." He adjusted his eye mask. "This was before my time. My own world was still intact then."

"You sold out your own world?" Yoko stepped forward to stand next to Asa. "You're trying to erase worlds - people - as if they never existed, and you don't even have a problem with this?"

Mekuramast glared silently.

Asa nodded. "The reason we have these powers is to stop that from happening!"

The Master Magician shook his head. "You're going to transform, aren't you? Go right ahead."

Asa and Yoko looked at each other and held hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

Asa emerged from the instant light show in her blinding orange-and-pink uniform. "On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

Yoko followed in her black-and-navy dress. "In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Mekuramast nodded. "In that case, let's get started!"

"Aren't you going to summon a Hidoinaa?" Sunday blinked.

"Why should I?" He twirled his wand again, almost absently, as a rope crept quietly towards them on the ground. "I just want the Moon Pieces."

"Watch out!" Night tackled Sunday to the ground just as the rising end of rope would have grabbed her phone. The two of them got back up quickly.

"Observant, aren't you?" Mekuramast whipped the rope back up his sleeve. "Then take this!" Playing cards shot from his wand and exploded around the room. The girls stood their ground and emerged, scuffed and burned, from the smoke (and Starry hid under the desk, not used to being out of the phones during a fight), but the classroom was a broken mess.

"We can't fight in here!" Night twitched. "It's all getting wrecked!"

'What's her thing with property damage?', Sunday thought. 'It all gets fixed.' Regardless, she charged at Mekuramast. While his raised arm blocked her strike, Night popped up beside him and spin-kicked him right out the open window. He flipped right-side-up and landed on his feet on the grass.

"You stay here!" Sunday looked back at Starry. "We'll come back and get you!" The two of them jumped out the window. Night was never more grateful that transforming made her more athletic. They landed in unison right in front of the magician.

"Good work." He smirked.

"Why are you acting like you're not doing your best?" Night narrowed her eyes. "You're making no sense at all!"

"Oh, I can answer that." Sunday grinned.

"You can?" Night blinked repeatedly.

"Yeah!" Sunday pointed a finger at Mekuramast. "You're my father, aren't you?"

"..."

"..."

"What?"

Mekuramast sweatdropped, which must have been a strange sight indeed. "Why would I be your father?" Had the new Pretty Cure lost brain cells in the transformation process?

"You're not? Hm..." Sunday tilted her head. "Are you her father?"

"My father lives with us!" Night facepalmed. "Where did all this come from, anyway? You didn't see it on DaiFighter, did you?"

"No!" Sunday looked offended. "It was on Super Ultra Special Team. Keep them straight, okay?"

"I'm nobody's father!" Mekuramast grumbled. "Take yourselves seriously! We're supposed to be opponents!"

"Fine, then!" Sunday punched him and sent him flying back. He flipped over and landed on his feet again.

"Was that whole thing a distraction?" Night asked.

"Nope," Sunday said. "I really meant it."

Night grimaced and ran forward. She sent a series of punches at the magician, who dodged most of them but was hit back by a few. He shot out a scarf-whip from his sleeve and pushed her back into her partner. The two pulled themselves up and glared.

"How can you even be doing this?" Night's grey hair blew in the breeze. "Why are you fighting? You destroyed your own world! Isn't that enough?"

Mekuramast flared his cape out. "You don't know anything yet, Pretty Cure." He snapped his fingers and light flashed in front of them. Both girls shielded their eyes until it was gone. When they looked back, he'd vanished like the magician he was.

"What?" Sunday stomped. "We didn't even get to use the finisher?"

"We got a Moon Piece, isn't that enough?" Night looked away and slipped deeper into thought.

Sunday paused. "...do you think he's Starry's father?"

"Just stop that!" Sunday shrank back when Night snapped at her. "I'm thinking about something serious!"

A few minutes passed. Finally, the darker-themed of the two turned back to the other. "...sorry."

Sunday gulped. "What's wrong, Naka- Night?"

Night sighed. "It's all too convenient. The Moon Piece was right where we looked for it. Right in our own classroom, even. Do you see what I'm getting at?"

"...what?"

"I think someone, somewhere, knows who we are."


	6. Somebody's Seen Us?

_The true strength of their leader, Asa, the Shining Hero, gave them hope..._

Kawada Asa shut her notebook and blushed. She wasn't quite sure why she wrote this stuff. Self-inserts were frowned upon, mostly because they tended to suck, and she knew hers weren't anything special. (Besides, her computer was fifteen years old and too slow to post them up for anyone to mock.) She just wanted to be a hero.

The thing, though, was that she was one. Just a handful of days ago, she, along with the intimidating Nakayama Yoko and the cute little creature Starry, had found the second of thirteen Moon Pieces. The Etherium, a hub of worlds reverted to empty voids, wanted them to complete the Moon Dial and control time so they could expand their emptiness. Asa and Yoko had fought one of them that day, a magician called Mekuramast. He'd refused to summon a monster that time, and he'd given up in the middle of the fight, but he still really seemed to want the Moon Pieces. Asa didn't get it. He should have been her father, though. If the man had to be gone for years, the least he could do, she reasoned, was make it plot-relevant.

Something had really bothered her teammate, though. Finding the Moon Piece in their own classroom had been too convenient, Nakayama-san had said (it had been fine with Asa, but if she said so). Someone, she concluded, must have known who they were. The question, then, was...

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 6: Someone's Seen Us? But Who Is It?

Kondou Hoshi closed her notebook in the break between classes. "So, Asa, what's got you so deep in thought?"

Asa blushed and waved it off. "Just something you wouldn't care about."

Hoshi felt Asa's forehead. "You must be sick. You tell everyone what's on your mind, whether or not they care or even get it."

"Hey," Asa protested, though she knew it was true.

"Asa~." The other girl shook her messy brown hair and leaned back in her seat. "You're not in love with someone, are you? Come on, who is it?"

"No way!" Asa blushed. She couldn't say she was talking about being a transforming hero, but still, Hoshi was way off the mark. "Where did you get that from?"

"True, true." Hoshi took out her book for the next subject. "The only things I could see you in love with are 'truth, justice and friendship'."

"Did you just insult me?" Asa sweatdropped.

"Sorry, sorry!" Hoshi waved her hand. "Just don't show too much burning spirit, or the Ice Queen will melt into a puddle and you'll have to do your science project by yourself."

"Hoshi, you're mean." Despite herself, Asa couldn't help but giggle at the image of a Yoko-puddle.

It was true, though, that she had been thinking. If her partner was right, then they had to find out who knew their secret and why, right? Whoever it turned out to be, this person seemed to be helping them, if that Moon Piece really had been planted for them to find. It was just like on Super Ultra Special Team: Jungle, the fifth season of her absolute favourite franchise (although DaiFighter was doing great right now; she really hoped it would get another season). The only thing, though: who could it be?

"Morning again, class!" The one person who it probably could not be twirled into the room. By this, of course, we mean Ami-sensei. "I hope you've all been working hard on your science projects~!"

Asa raised her hand. "Nakata-sensei?"

Ami-sensei looked over. "Yes?"

Asa stood up. "Where did you get your paperweight?"

"Ah, this?" The teacher smiled and picked up a shiny, purple stone cat. It was actually a copy of her original paperweight, which Asa and Yoko had had to take when it turned out to be a Moon Piece. Looking at it, Ami-sensei almost sparkled.

"I'm glad that my students are taking an interest in good art! Usually, nobody cares about such things. It's such a tragically apathetic world! When I try to tell them that I found this beautiful paperweight while I was out in the shopping district, they ignore me just as when I ask for the raise I've deserved for the past five years! The local art of Kazahana City is so neglected by the outside world, but you, you students appreciate it! This is the first indicator of a brighter future for us all!"

She went on about love and hope and her latest invention to make the microwave go faster for a good fifteen minutes and finished off with five minutes of whining that she wanted a promotion before she actually got around to teaching class. Afterwards, the other girls all came over and thanked Asa.

"I didn't feel like learning today."

"You bought me time to finish the questions from last class!" (Hadn't they had the weekend for that?)

"How'd you know that purple paperweight would get her talking like that?"

Asa blushed. 'Is this what it's like to be popular?', she thought. 'Or... is this just what it's like to be normal?'

"The shopping district?" Yoko blinked. "Did she mean the Seiki Open Mall?"

"I think so," Asa said. "It's only been considered a 'mall' for ten years, when one family store decided that they should all affiliate with one another. Kind of like uniting their separate powers, you know? I don't remember when it was just called 'the shopping district', but my mom does."

"Then when would she have gotten it?" Yoko kept an eye on the door of the empty classroom. "I know some people keep calling things by the same name, but the trail would be cold if it were really 'the shopping district' when she found the Moon Piece."

Starry popped out of Asa's phone. "Don't worry ~susu. The Moon Pieces were only scattered here the day before I found you two ~susu."

Yoko rubbed her chin. "Even so, if they were scattered, there might not even be another one in the same place."

Asa frowned. She hadn't thought of that. "But then what do we do...?"

"Let's check it out anyway ~susu." Starry smiled up at them. "It's better to look than to pass it by, right ~susu?"

"I guess," Yoko began, when the door opened. Okamoto Yukari, hair in a black braid around the top of her head, walked into the Lily Class room.

"Ah, Yoko, did you want to go shopp...ing..." She blinked. "Kawada-san?"

Asa tensed up. "Okamoto-san! Hi!"

Yukari gave a slightly devious smile to Yoko. "Oh, so you are making more friends, Yoko! That's good to hear."

Yoko stood up. "We're just talking about the science project. That's all."

"Aww, don't be like that." Yukari walked over to them. "Why don't you come shopping with us, Kawada-san? More people always means more fun."

"Not always," Yoko said under her breath.

"Sure!" Asa backed up. "I mean, if it's all right for you."

Yukari smiled. "Well, of course it - oh!" She picked Starry up off the desk, where he had been trying his best not to move. "This is adorable! Is it yours, Kawada-san?"

"Uh... kind of." Asa's face turned a little pink. "Can I have him back now, please?"

"Oh, of course!" Yukari handed him back and Asa stuffed him into her bag, where he entered the phone.

"We're really going shopping together..." Yoko sweatdropped.

"Come on, it's bonding!" Yukari smiled. "Let's go!"

Kainatrol twirled her riding crop between her fingers. "So none of you have managed to find a single Moon Piece, and nobody has any clue if Pretty Cure has any, either?"

Everyone in the Etherium nodded. Mireyes looked down gravely at the crystal ball in her hands - at least, she tilted her head down, but, thanks to the veil she wore, no one could see her eyes to tell whether she was actually looking at anything. Binbeat looked around, obviously bored, until Kainatrol swatted him with the riding crop and he let out a cry of pain. Tachimany started to fidget as they fought the temptation to send one of their bodies behind Kainatrol and give her bunny ears. Mekuramast turned his head away.

"This is unacceptable." Kainatrol paced in front of them, occasionally smacking her open palm. "The Boss won't be happy if we don't get them soon. The pressure is there. Not only did the Garden of Days scatter the Moon Pieces in a different world, they've also awakened the legendary warriors, Pretty Cure. As in, the Pretty Cure who stole the Moon Dial from us in the first place twenty-five years ago!"

"Ah, but Kainatrol," Mekuramast interjected with a spin of his wand, "you were the one who said that they weren't the same people. They're just a pair of inexperienced girls, aren't they?"

Kainatrol's glare was worthy of her "Feared" title. "So were the last ones."

Mekuramast didn't flinch. "Then why don't you just see how strong they are? It'll be a good experience."

"I don't fight," Kainatrol said. "You'll have to find someone else for that, magician."

"If I may," Mireyes said, "they were drawn out once before with the appearance of a Hidoinaa in an area where they happened to be. Kazahana City is still quite small and, though a monster may not be visible from all over, news of its appearance is likely to reach the girls immediately if it is planted in a highly populated area."

The ripple of the Boss appeared again. "You may be right, Mireyes. Go try to see if you can't draw the two of them out."

The old woman bowed and vanished from the scene.

"This is fun, isn't it?" Yukari smiled at the two of them.

Asa looked around the shopping district and away from Yoko, who was sending shivers onto her skin again. "Yeah... Hey, look, what are they building over there?" She pointed at a half-done construction site.

"Oh, that?" Yukari looked up at it. Yoko's gaze followed along as her friend continued. "That's been there for a couple months. They're building a new jewelry store where the old bank was! You know, the one that got destroyed in a fire three years ago?"

It was hard to tell who felt more like she shouldn't be standing there with the other two. Yoko turned her head away from Asa. Her intrusion was changing things already. Yoko had no way of knowing about the old bank or the shopping district or anything like that. Kawada Asa, the girl everybody laughed at behind her back, looked like she was getting along better with Yoko's own friend than Yoko herself did on a regular basis. On the other hand, Asa still granted herself only the occasional glance at Yoko before she looked away and shuddered. Besides all these problems, there was still the matter of that one possibility. 'Someone must know who we are.'

Yukari stopped and extended her arms to the sides. Asa and Yoko bumped into them and stumbled back.

"Hold it!"

She turned around and stepped back to face the two. They both blinked at her.

"I don't know what's going on, but it's not healthy to just be avoiding each other, okay?"

Her audience of two stared. Yukari smiled.

"Come on! Let's do something fun. There's a purse shop right over there!"

Asa had no earthly idea why buying a new purse was supposed to be fun, and besides, those were way too expensive, especially from some specialty shop. She had her school suitcase on hand already, and, on holidays, her worn-out orange canvas bag with her name stitched on could last her for another ten years or so. Before she could protest, though, Yukari twirled over to the store without them.

"...Do we have to go there?"

Yoko blinked at her and slightly laughed to herself before she walked over to her friend. Asa sighed and followed along.

Mireyes materialized on top of a metal beam. She turned her head around to survey the construction site around her.

"Hmm..."

A worker approached behind her. "Um, lady, you're not supposed to be in here..."

She swirled around and struck her hand forward. A small magic circle drew itself and she hit it with her open palm. The worker, directly in front of it, was blasted back to the other end of the site. He crumpled when he hit the wire fence, leaving a noticeable dent.

The old woman swished back around and began to walk around the construction site as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, and look at this one! " Yukari held up a large, white leather bag with gold buckles and zippers all over. "There's space for everything in here! I could sneak a whole bag of fun-sized candy into the movie theatre!"

Asa picked up the price tag and made a face. "Does someone our age even have that kind of money?"

Yoko's hair stood on end. "Yukari! You're not allowed to sneak candy into the theatre! That's what the concession stand is for!"

"Aww, you two are no fun." Yukari giggled. "More people would buy from the concession stand if it weren't so expensive, Yoko!"

The grey-haired girl twitched. "The concession stand wouldn't be so expensive if more people bought food there instead of smuggling!"

"Hidoinaa!"

Yukari pouted. "You don't have to say it's awful, Yoko, I-" She blinked at the other two. "What's going on? Your faces are completely white!"

Asa and Yoko looked at each other and then ran to the display windows of the store. People were running through the paved walking street and screaming. Something came very close to crashing through the window from outside; Asa stumbled back, and Yoko inwardly raged.

"Something's going on, Yukari!" Yoko turned her head back. "You should run!" She burst through the front door. Asa nodded and ran after her.

Yukari shivered. She started out to follow, but something grabbed her wrist.

"Wha-!"

She looked up behind her. A woman with bright red hair shook her head.

"Who..."

"Run the other way, Okamoto Yukari-san." She began to lead the confused girl off in the direction that the crowd was running. "The other two know what they're doing."

Asa and Yoko had run against the grain of the crowd and tracked it to the construction site. Sure enough, a crane was dangling its hook this way and that and had grown a very scary-looking face. It shouted "hidoinaa, hidoinaa!" as it swung back and forth.

"That's a safety hazard!" Yoko glared and pulled out her phone.

"It's a monster," Asa reminded. The two of them ran behind a pile of barrels and slashed the Moon Cards.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

Mireyes looked over at the noise. A large magic circle and a flash of light appeared over some barrels, and two girls in strange costumes jumped up on top of them.

"On behalf of the light..." Asa put one hand on her hip. "I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows..." Yoko put the opposite hand on her own hip. "I am Cure Night!"

They put their inside hands in the air, acting as perfect mirrors. "We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..." They pointed forward at her and the Hidoinaa.

"To ensure a peaceful era!"

Cure Night blinked and flailed. "What are we doing standing on these? This is completely unsafe! And shouldn't we have hard hats at a construction site? Neither of us has even had ladder training!"

Cure Sunday stared. "Uh, Night... don't we have powers? We won't just die if we fall."

Night crossed her arms and glared. "It's the principle of the thing."

"Fufufu..." The old woman in white and purple walked forward on a metal beam. "So you're the new Pretty Cure, are you?"

"Yeah!" Sunday nodded. "We are! And who are you? Some other Etherium person?"

"One could say that." She stepped off the beam and seemed to float down to the ground, her dress billowing out. "I am the Mystical Seer, Mireyes. It's not my original name, but it will do finely for now."

"What do you think you're doing?" Night wobbled and tried to get down from the barrel pyramid. "Is there a Moon Piece here, or are you just attacking at random?"

Mireyes shook her head. "You would know more than I did. Do you have anything for us?"

Night's eyes widened. 'The others don't know that we have two Moon Pieces?', she thought. 'The magician didn't tell them?'

"Hidoinaa!" The construction crane Hidoinaa, apparently angry at having been neglected, swung out and hooked Cure Night by the back of her dress. It reeled her up high in the air as she flailed and kicked around.

"Night!" Sunday jumped into the air and kicked the Hidoinaa. She sprang off of it and grabbed onto the cord, which swung in the other direction. With her other hand, she tugged her armwarmer down around her palm and switched hands to slide down. Rope burn was not fun. Sunday pulled her partner off of the hook and jumped down to the ground.

"Thanks," Night said.

"Of course!" Sunday let go and fixed her armwarmer.

"Hidoinaa!" The Hidoinaa sent out the hook again. Both girls dodged, and it smashed into the ground, scattering rocks and dirt clods everywhere. The hook reeled itself back in again as the face glared at them.

"Go!" Sunday leapt into the air and started pounding on the monster. It rumbled to start up its engine, but Night dashed along the ground and spin-kicked its tire off course. The Hidoinaa wobbled and turned away from the two before almost crashing into the construction. Sunday grabbed its hook and swung behind it to attach it to the fence first.

Night looked up at Sunday. "We have to stop this thing now!"

"Is this because it might wreck stuff again?" Sunday jumped down beside her. "It gets fixed!"

"People might not get fixed!" Night pointed at the swinging crane. "That thing is a safety hazard! You'll get civilians involved if this keeps up!"

"All right!" Sunday grabbed her partner's hand.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

Mireyes looked amused. "Hmm, a new incantation for a new group." She phased out of the construction site, leaving her Hidoinaa.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

The dark blue glow surrounded Sunday and Night, and they launched into the air, zipping this way and that before finally crashing head-on into and through the Hidoinaa. It burned up in blue fire, leaving only the unharmed, completely normal construction equipment.

Sunday pouted. "That was way too easy."

Starry popped out of the phone. "It must have been because of your wish to protect Night's friend and the city ~susu."

"I guess..." Night looked away for a moment.

Sunday gulped. "...Night?"

Night shook her head and looked at the other girl. "...So you hate purse shopping, too, huh?"

The orange Cure stared for a good minute before they both burst out laughing.

"Well?" Kainatrol adjusted her jeweled eye mask. "Did you manage to find anything?"

Mireyes glared behind her veil, but all that the younger woman could see was the bottom half of her face. That, she managed to keep emotionless. "They defeated a first-level Hidoinaa rather quickly. Their progression seems to be at a normal rate."

"And nothing about Moon Pieces?" She shrugged and walked away. "It's something, I suppose."

The old fortune teller turned away and teleported out.

"There you guys are!" Yukari ran up to Asa and Yoko in front of the shop they'd fled. The open mall had, for the most part, returned to normal, and people were walking around and talking like usual.

"Yukari!" Yoko waved. "Where did you go?"

"Some lady came and found me," she said. "She said the two of you would be fine... Yoko?" Yukari blinked. "Are you all right?"

Yoko shook her head. "Did this person have bright red hair? Was she a little younger than my mom?"

Yukari tilted her head. "Probably..."

Asa blinked. "What's going on? Nakayama-san? Okamoto-san?"

"I'll tell you later." Yoko closed her eyes. She thought of that woman who had confronted Kainatrol, the one who had resisted her power.

Dawn.


	7. Lovely Assistant Yukari!

They were being watched. Kawada Asa and Nakayama Yoko, two girls from Kazahana City who had been chosen as legendary warriors, had thought that they had kept their identities and the existence of Pretty Cure secret. That was until Yoko thought too hard about the convenient appearance of their second Moon Piece. Her suspicions that someone had figured it out were confirmed: a mysterious woman had held Yoko's friend Yukari back from following them and led her to safety when Mireyes, the old fortune teller from the Etherium, attacked a nearby construction site. As Yoko, Asa and Yukari walked out of the Seiki Open Mall, semi-engaged in awkward conversation, two out of three were still thinking about what all this could mean.

Mekuramast glanced over the side of a building down at the street.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 7: Welcome to my Magic Show! Lovely Assistant Yukari!

"So you're sure about this?" Asa stuffed a piece of avocado roll into her mouth and made a face. The convenience store never made them taste as good as they did fresh, but she'd never learned to cook and her mother certainly didn't have the time. "This lady's been following us?"

"As far as I can tell, yes." Yoko frowned over a stapled package of papers and circled some things with a red pen. "Kawada-san, did you even read the section on angles and movement in that textbook we borrowed?"

Most of the students had taken their food to the lunchroom, courtyard or roof, leaving Asa and Yoko to work on their science project in the classroom. Of course, this made it a perfect opportunity for the two of them to discuss Pretty Cure business, and it was less suspicious than staying after school every day. Papers and books were strewn around the desks, with plans written on looseleaf about how the presentation would go.

Asa sweatdropped. "What did I mess up?"

Yoko facepalmed. "Almost everything. The physics are all wrong. If you built an engine like that, it would explode when you turned it on."

The blue-haired girl sighed and leafed through one of the neglected books. "What do you think it means? Us being followed, that is. There's about a 50% chance that she's evil, but she could be helping us, too."

"She did plant the Moon Piece in the classroom," Yoko mused. "At least, that's my theory. It could have just been there, or someone else could have done it."

Asa munched on her avocado roll. "Even if she is helping us, we're going to have to fight her at least a few times, is what I think. Should probably be prepared. Who knows?"

"You got that conclusion from TV, didn't you?" Yoko sighed.

Asa nodded. "Yup."

For the second day in a row, the classroom door opened. Both girls looked up to see a student with bright red hair and a huge pink hair bow shuffling her feet and staring at the floor.

"Uh... Kawada-san? Nakayama-san?"

"Ogata-san!" Asa's eyes grew wide. Ogata Mia was a classmate who had taken a late vacation just when Asa transferred in and come back a little after Asa and Yoko had become Pretty Cure. She had been suspected of having a Moon Piece, so the girls had followed her and Asa determined that it wasn't. Mia blew up at Asa about being 'delusional' after she used the Scan Card, but after Sunday and Night saved her from Kainatrol, Asa found a simple apology note in her shoe locker. Mia hadn't spoken to them since. She wrung her hands and stepped into the classroom.

Yoko stood up. "What is it?"

Mia flinched. "You see..." She drew out two pamphlets from her school bag. "I volunteered to give these out to help advertise a show that's going on in the town square. I was giving them to the whole class, so maybe you want to..."

Yoko took them out of her hand and inspected one. "A stage show?"

Mia turned her head away. "I'm sure it's not really your thing, but just if you wanted to. I didn't want to leave you two out this time."

'You two'? They were being lumped together? Yoko frowned. "Well, maybe-"

Asa shot up out of her seat. "We're definitely coming! Thanks a lot, Ogata-san!"

Yoko boggled at her. "What!"

Asa took a pamphlet out of Yoko's hand and scanned it over. "Yep, looks good. You won't have to worry about me or Nakayama-san."

Mia blinked. "Well... okay!" She ran off and closed the door behind her.

Yoko whirled around and put her hands on her hips. "What was that about?"

Asa remembered herself and shrunk back. "Um... sorry, Nakayama-san. I just thought, doesn't it seem like an evil plot?"

"An evil plot? You have to be kidding me," Yoko said. "Even saying it like that?"

Asa took in a sharp breath. "Sorry, but... to me, it looks obvious."

Yoko facepalmed. "I can't believe this."

Somewhere in Wakaba, somebody sneezed.

The Etherium had three members of its force missing that day. Mireyes was off staring into her crystal ball, Tachimany were carrying on a conversation with themselves, and Binbeat had left with a devious grin and the intention to run somebody's underwear up a flagpole. This left Mekuramast and Kainatrol, standing in the middle of the void and shooting evil looks at one another.

"Pay attention." They turned back to the front. The Boss continued. "Luring out Pretty Cure and determining their strength is all well and good, but we need to focus first on the objective at hand: obtaining the thirteen Moon Pieces."

"I'm aware," Mekuramast said. He, of course, knew full well where two of them were, but he didn't volunteer it. "What would you like us to do?"

The air rippled. "Gather a large amount of people. One of them may have found a Moon Piece. If not, they can be commanded to search. That should be easy enough with Kainatrol's power." The sound turned towards her. "I realize that you usually direct one subject at a time, but you have shown yourself to be more than capable of what I ask."

Kainatrol bowed. "Naturally. I should ask, though; what if Pretty Cure does show up?"

Mekuramast shook his head with a smirk. "After all this time, you still don't have enough power to mind-control the legendary warriors. You can leave fighting them to me."

Kainatrol smacked her open palm with her riding crop. "Did the Boss ask you to speak?"

"Silence, the both of you," said the invisivble voice. "As for your concerns, I am fully aware that not all of my agents are suited to fighting. The two of you together, on the other hand, are more than capable of handling the possibility of those girls appearing. Now, go." The air stood still.

The two of them bowed and teleported out. Eight figures in shiny white suits - Tachimany, judging either by the gold trim on the suits, the gold-studded eye masks, or the fact that all eight people were completely identical - appeared to the side.

"Is this a good idea, Boss?", one of their bodies asked. "Not to question you, but..."

"They work great together, remember?", another interrupted. "One grabbing all the attention and fighting, the other in the back keeping everyone in line."

A third body nodded. "As good as they are separately, they can't have the unity that we as Tachimany do alone. We're just lucky like that."

The first crossed his (her?) arms. "You've forgotten one thing, selves. They hate each other." She (he?) nodded sagely. "They've always hated each other, at least ever since they first joined us."

The air rippled in front of Tachimany. "As true as that may be, it's more efficient to do it this way," said the boss. "Besides." A pause. "They both seem to need a lesson about who's in charge."

The park was filling with all kinds of people, standing around a makeshift stage. The girls of the Lily Class were busy chattering to one another and gesturing to the signs and posters.

"A stage show, right? So many people are here." Omemi Emiru twirled a piece of her hair.

Mia nodded. "Someone approached me to help out with giving away tickets! Even I'm not sure what it's for."

Izumi Misaki tilted her head one way. "You don't know? That's strange."

Misaki Izumi tilted her head the other way. "It is strange. You really don't know?"

A few people away from the group, Asa fidgeted with her bag. "This is boring."

Hoshi laughed. "Weren't you the one who wanted to come?"

"I didn't think there would be this much waiting," Asa sighed. "When are the people coming out?"

Hoshi sighed and ran a hand through her own mess of hair. "Asa, you really need to work on the whole patience thing. They'll be out any minute."

Yukari ran over to them with a smile and wave. "Ah, Kawada-san! Kondou-san, too!" She gestured for Yoko to come over, which she did with a sigh.

Hoshi stepped back, eyes wide. "Okamoto and Nakayama?" She turned to Asa. "Was this your idea?"

"Oh, don't be like that, Kondou-san!" Yukari smiled politely. "It's always good to be with more people. Besides, we aren't scary or dangerous!" She looked back. "Isn't that right, Yoko?"

Yoko frowned and looked off to the side. "We're not."

"Then it's settled!" Yukari looked up to the stage. "There shouldn't be any problem with us all being together."

A light came on and the crowd settled down. A blue-haired man in a shiny white top hat rose on a platform from underneath the stage. Everyone applauded as he stepped forward and bowed.

"Good afternoon, everyone!" He looked at everybody in the crowd. "Today we've got some interesting things to show you. But first, I'll have to call someone up."

Kainatrol smirked from somewhere behind the scenes and held up a gold metal circle with "communication ring" in some language engraved on the outside. It glowed as she whispered. "Looking for a new assistant, are you?"

The disguised Mekuramast tightened his grip on an identical ring. "You're mocking me, Kainatrol," he whispered.

Kainatrol heard him through her metal circle and smirked. "Oh, am I, now? Be careful what you say, magician."

Mekuramast cursed the communication rings and looked through the crowd. Wait, was that -

Pretty Cure. He didn't know who the other two girls were, but he'd seen the one with the crown braid before, down in the shopping district (apparently it was an open mall now, whatever the difference was). Well, this was new. He swept out his arm and pointed his wand at Yukari.

"You with the glasses in the blue school uniform, please come forward!"

Yukari blinked and made her way out of the crowd. She climbed up the steps and bowed. "Yes, what is it?"

Mekuramast gestured offstage. "Could you bring out the large mirror?"

"All right!" Yukari walked over and pulled on the side of a gigantic mirror suspended on a rolling three-sided frame. All of the parts surrounding the glass were some clean, ornately carved white material that glinted in the sun.

Asa blinked. "It looks like a fancy, oversized makeup mirror. Like for giant rich people."

Yoko raised an eyebrow at her. "...Giant rich people."

Asa turned pink. "Well, that's what it looks like!"

Hoshi scratched her head. When did Asa start talking back to someone she used to be afraid of? This was getting weirder and weirder.

The magician twirled his wand and put his hat back on. "Now, stand aside." He tilted the mirror slightly, and a woman with short, deep red hair, a red vest, a crisp white uniform and an eye mask appeared.

Mia gasped and stumbled back. "That's-" She forced herself out of the crowd and bolted.

Asa and Yoko looked at each other.

"Let's go!" Asa tried running after, but Yoko grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

"What? Ow!"

Yoko pointed to the stage. "Yukari is up there!", she whispered. "Are you just going to leave her to these people? What about the crowd?"

Asa looked back at her. "If we don't leave, we won't be able to come back and help!"

Yoko's grip tightened. "If we do leave, we could come back too late!"

Hoshi stepped between them. "What are you two talking about?"

Kainatrol's image in the mirror laughed a bit. "Well, people of Kazahana City, I'd like for you to do something for me." Her eyes began to glow. Hoshi turned around to face the stage with a blank look. The rest of the crowd also went emotionless and stared.

Yoko looked around. "Why are we the only ones not affected?"

Starry poked his head out of Yoko's phone. "I don't think it can hurt Pretty Cure ~susu! It's not strong enough ~susu!"

Asa tugged on Yoko's arm. "We need to leave, now!"

"But-"

Asa gulped but stood her ground. "It's the only thing we can do! Let's go!" She pulled Yoko along with her out of the crowd and ran behind the trees and around the park area.

Mekuramast smirked and swept his cape around himself. His suit slightly changed and his hair went back down to the style it was usually in, and his eye mask was now on. "Now it's all your turn," he said with an exaggerated bow.

Kainatrol focused on her hypnotized crowd. "Every one of you, find the thirteen Moon Pieces-"

"Wait!"

Mekuramast turned to look at the top of the stage. Kainatrol's image in the mirror looked slightly up and to the side.

Night and Sunday stood on top of the framework, pointing down.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"To ensure a peaceful era!"

Mekuramast smirked. "I thought that you two would show up."

Night leapt down to the front of the stage between Yukari and Mekuramast. "Let go of Yukari and everyone else!"

"I don't have anyone to let go of," he shrugged. "It's all her doing."

Sunday jumped down after her partner. "You mean the person who hypnotized Ogata-san before!"

Kainatrol's image in the mirror shook her head. "I'd appreciate if you didn't treat me as if I weren't here." She smirked. "Even if, as you see, I'm not."

"Where are you!" Night snapped at the mirror.

"That would ruin the whole point," Kainatrol said. "Besides, I don't like to fight. That's someone else's job." With that, Yukari mindlessly wandered toward them.

"Yukari!" Night stepped back. "Wake up!"

"She's controlling her!", Sunday reminded. "She probably won't listen to you!"

Yukari swept her leg up and kicked at Night, who blocked just in time and skidded back. The brainwashed girl continued to strike, with Night blocking everything.

Sunday stepped in to try and hit the girl. Night grabbed her, leaving them both open. Yukari struck the two of them down to the stage.

"What are you doing?", Sunday said.

"That's Yukari!" Night forced herself up and returned to just blocking. "She's my friend! She can't fight! One hit from us would probably kill her!"

Mekuramast held up his communication ring. "Tell me, Kainatrol, what's the difference between this and summoning a Hidoinaa? We all know you hate doing that."

Kainatrol laughed a little. "It takes a little more effort, but it's quite worth it."

Sunday got up and jumped toward Mekuramast. "We're not letting either of you do this!"

He dodged and stood there as she turned to face him. "Again, it isn't me. I'm just here for the show. And the Moon Pieces, of course." He drew out a handful of exploding cards and tossed them at her. When the dust subsided, she stood there, arms over her face, barely hurt.

"We need them, too!" Sunday struck at him and knocked him back. He did a flip in the air, landed with a force that jolted the mirror to tilt slightly backward, and ran to hit her back again.

Night dodged Yukari's next few blows and grabbed her arm. "Yukari! Come on, what are you doing?"

"You wouldn't even do anything with them!" Mekuramast jumped back and drew out the scarf-whip from his sleeve, attacking Sunday with it.

She grabbed the whip with her arm, wincing in pain. "We'd be keeping them from you guys! That's more than enough for me!"

He yanked it back, sending her flying into the cyclorama. "I need them more than you do!"

Sunday ripped right through it and dropped to the boards backstage. She pulled herself back up and ran at him again. "Yeah, right!"

"Sunday!" Night struggled at downstage left. "Hurry and beat him! I can't hold Yukari for much longer!"

Mekuramast blocked Sunday's chop with his hand and smirked. "You won't free her by fighting me. Kainatrol's the one you need to defeat for that." He pushed her back and jumped onto a prop. "She'll lose her control if she's hit hard enough."

"She's not even here!" Sunday swept it out from under him. He landed on his hands, sprung and got back on his feet in front of the mirror. Wait, the mirror - it had tilted back during the fight, and something red flashed behind the projected image. "Night! You understand this physics stuff! Where is she?"

Night turned to the mirror, still trying to hold onto Yukari. Right... "There!" She let go of the hypnotized girl, ran to her partner and grabbed her hand.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

A magic circle drew itself behind them and a burning dark blue aura surrounded them.

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

Night looked at the tilted mirror on the stage, then to the audience. The projector was hidden somewhere... the direction and size of the projection - ah, over there. That flash of red she'd seen was higher up on the mirror. This meant... She moved to point herself straight above where they were. Sunday moved along with her.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

They flew right upwards and tore through the top of the stage setup. Kainatrol stood there, a horrified look on her face, and put her hands out. A red, glowing light shield manifested itself in front of them, holding them off. Still, the Cures continued to press, blue on red, fighting to get through.

"We're pulling out of here!", she demanded down at the stage. "Now!" Kainatrol vanished, as did Mekuramast below and all of their props. Night and Sunday kept going and crashed into a high tree.

"Oww..." Sunday rubbed her side. "I'm gonna be so bruised in the morning."

"Don't you heal instantly ~susu?" Starry poked his head out of Yoko's phone.

She sweatdropped. "Oh, yeah!"

"Yukari!" Night jumped down from the tree and detransformed, forcing Sunday along with her. Yoko ran up to the stage, which was repairing itself from the damage sustained in the fight, and to her friend.

"What's going on?" Yukari held her head.

"I have no idea," Yoko said. "We should get going. Don't you have to work at your parents' store?"

Yukari gasped. "Right! Let's go, okay? I'll take you out for taiyaki later!"

Asa's shoulders slumped as the tree she was in put itself back together. She climbed down the side and hopped to the ground.

"You practically helped them ruin the entire plan!", Kainatrol spat. This corner of the Etherium looked quite empty, but it always did, even when you could see people inside. "What did you think you were doing?"

Mekuramast twirled his wand. "You're taking it too seriously, Feared Tamer. I wasn't helping anybody. Why would I? I want the Moon Pieces just as much as you do."

She fumed and smacked her gloved hand with her riding crop. "You'll listen to me when I'm in charge."

He shrugged. "Ah, but you weren't in charge and you didn't tell me anything to listen to. I just went along with the plan."

Kainatrol glared through her red-studded eye mask. "I don't know what you're trying to do, but you're going to listen to me."

Mekuramast took off his own blue-studded eye mask. "Whereas I know exactly what you're trying to do, and I think I'll pass." He teleported out.

She seethed and held the handle of her riding crop tighter. "You have no idea."


	8. There's No Way I Like You!

Kawada Asa didn't know what she was thinking. Until recently, she'd been terrified of Nakayama Yoko, just like everybody else seemed to be. Being Pretty Cure and ending up in the science project together had made the past month or so confusing, to say the least, but she slowly found herself warming up to the so-called Ice Queen. Even if they didn't have much in common, Asa sometimes caught herself thinking that the other girl was interesting or fun to talk to. It was easy to come to that conclusion, once she thought about it. After all, they were Pretty Cure. Didn't that mean that they should become the best of friends?

Still, then there had been yesterday. Okamoto Yukari, Yoko's friend, had been used by Mekuramast and Kainatrol to help find the Moon Pieces, and, when Pretty Cure showed up, to fight them because they'd hold back against her. After the whole ordeal was over, Yoko ran to Yukari and instantly focused all her attention on her, dropping her plans for the afternoon with Asa and leaving her up in a tree without seeing if she could get down. Even if Yukari was that important of a friend, Asa couldn't help feeling at least a little shafted.

Well, it was probably nothing, right? Everything would be normal at school today.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 8: There's No Way I Like You! Is There?

"Love! Justice! Truth! These virtues will spread throughout the Lily Class! Throughout the school! Throughout all of Kazahana City!"

Ami-sensei was on one of her rants again. Most of the students were passing notes, doodling in the margins of their looseleaf or staring out the window. Asa raised her hand in her desk.

"Yes, Kawada?"

She stood up. "Nakata-sensei, aren't you missing some?"

Ami-sensei blinked. "Some what? What did I miss?"

"Virtues!" Asa grinned. "Love, justice and truth are good and everything, but you need a full set. You can't forget friendship, courage and happiness!"

"Well, yes, of course..." Ami-sensei put her finger to her lip and thought. "But why are those six a 'set'? What makes them the most important?"

"They're the Six Spheres of the World," Asa said, still with a wide smile on her face. "Without one of them, the others are weaker, you know?"

"I'm not sure how you came up with this," the teacher replied, "but it sounds true enough! Kawada understands the great nature of this world! All of you must try harder to also see the world's goodness!"

Hoshi leaned forward in her desk when Asa sat back down. "Where'd that come from?"

Asa sweatdropped. "Uh... Super Ultra Special Team?"

Hoshi sighed. "Figures."

In her own desk, Yoko was among those staring into space. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, but she blankly ran her pencil along the line of her ruler, redrawing the straight lines on the looseleaf. A folded piece of blue note paper dropped onto her desk, and she absently opened it up.

You okay? Something looks wrong.

~Yukari.O~

Yoko turned her head back to the smiling Yukari for a second. Of course she'd pretend to be fine. Looking at how Ogata Mia had reacted the same day, Kainatrol's victims probably did remember being hypnotized, even if Yukari was acting like nothing was wrong. Yoko turned the cloud-printed stationery over and wrote something neatly down before handing it back.

The lunch bell rang not long after that. Yoko got up and went to join the rest of the students filing out the door. Asa stood and moved to block her way.

Yoko stepped back and glared. "What are you doing?"

Asa gulped. "Well, I thought we were going to work on our science project at lunch today, like normal. Right?"

Yukari frowned but didn't say anything this time. Most of their other classmates had left now, but the remaining few stopped to stare. Omemi Emiru adjusted her glasses in the corner.

Yoko tried to maneuver past. "I can't today. I'm eating lunch with Yukari."

Asa shook but stood her ground. "What? Why is it changing now?"

"What do you mean, 'why'?", Yoko snapped. "Look, I'll talk with you after school, but this is more important! You should know that!"

More important than Pretty Cure? "How is it more important?", Asa demanded. All eyes still in the room were on the scary class stoic and the weird girl who was standing up to her.

"You just don't get it!", Yoko said. "Be less selfish once in a while, Kawada-san! Think of it this way. Who means more to you: your friend or someone you only talk to because you have to?"

Asa froze. She stood there trembling for what felt like an hour before she forced her body to move enough to step backward.

"Nakayama-san... you..." She scrunched up her eyelids and clenched her fists at the sides. "Well, that's fine with me!" Asa whirled around and ran out of the classroom.

Yoko blinked as people around her murmured and stared.

The plan had been perfect. Mekuramast would put on a show to draw attention, while Kainatrol, hidden in the back, would hypnotize the crowd to search for the thirteen Moon Pieces. If Pretty Cure showed up, and they did, the magician would do all the fighting. It had all gone according to plan, but Mekuramast mentioned offhandedly that the girls had to defeat Kainatrol to free the civilians, and they turned their attention to finding her. She wasn't a fighter. She barely made it out unhurt.

"That insufferable-" Kainatrol nearly snapped her riding crop in two. "If it weren't for him, I would have gotten the Moon Pieces right then and there!"

Mireyes appeared, her dress and head covering swishing as she walked. "You can't take that as a sure thing. Probably nobody knew where to find a single one."

Kainatrol whirled to face her. "Oh, shut up, you old hag."

Mireyes started to glow purple. "What did you call me-"

"Ladies, ladies!" Five teenage girls popped up wearing white and gold Etherium uniforms, weaving themselves around the two. "None of us need an argument in here. We were trying to rest."

"You stay out of this, Tachimany," Kainatrol snapped, the light glinting off the red jewels on her mask. "It isn't like you've done much to help."

Tachimany shifted into two businessmen. "How cruel. We've done the same amount of searching as any of you. If we have to step it up, then so do the rest of you."

Mireyes smirked, her eyes giving off an eerie glow under the head covering. "It seems that we'll get an opportunity soon enough."

It had been a very awkward rest of the day. At least now school was letting out, and most of the students were leaving school or sitting in the courtyard. All of them were very focused on talking about what they'd seen or heard, particularly one group sitting in a circle on the grass.

"Seriously, that's what happened." Emiru adjusted her glasses and brushed fallen leaves off her skirt. "Nakayama just completely shut her down."

"Normally, that wouldn't be surprising, but isn't there something off about this?" Misaki Izumi picked a leaf out of her hair.

"There is," said Izumi Misaki, who did the same thing, but on the opposite side of her head. "They seemed to actually be getting along."

"That's why it's so interesting," Emiru snapped. "This either proves that no one can pretend to like Kawada for too long without either going back to normal or going insane, or that Nakayama just has some mental block against making friends. Kondou excepted for the first theory and Okamoto for the second, of course, although I don't see how."

Kondou Hoshi herself stormed through the school halls back to the Lily Class' room. She swung the door open and locked on to Yoko sitting in her usual spot by the window.

"Kawada-san, you're here. I was beginning to-" Yoko looked up and blinked. "...Kondou-san?"

Hoshi marched over to the desk, shoved the ones in front of it out of the way, moved to stand opposite Yoko and slammed her hands on the desk.

"What did you do to Asa?"

Asa didn't stay at school that afternoon. She walked as quickly as she could past the other students pointing at her, not even stopping to buy a sweet potato. She didn't have the change right now anyway. So there she was, a girl in a Clair Academy uniform, a piece of blue hair dropping in front of her face as she forced herself to keep on walking. She finally let out a sigh and sat down on a bench.

Asa moved her hair back where it was and looked up after a moment. Without noticing, she'd ended up at the clock tower in the middle of town. She frowned and stared up at the hands moving.

"The bow on your uniform is crooked."

"Nakayama-san-" Asa startled and blinked a few times. No, that wasn't Yoko at all; the long grey hair and stern face she thought she saw faded to fluffy, short red hair with a pink bow at the back and a concerned look.

Ogata Mia offered a hand. "Want to talk about it? Let's go somewhere that not everyone will show up and gape."

"Me?" Yoko made a face. "I didn't do anything. What are you talking about?"

"Don't give me that! I know you did!" Hoshi didn't move from her spot. "Not only is everyone talking about what happened at lunch today, Asa wouldn't even talk to me about it. She tells everything about her life to everyone she knows, whether they're interested or not! You did something, so admit it!"

Yoko stood up and looked Hoshi in the eye. "She was the one being insensitive, to me and to Yukari. She knew what happened yesterday. I'm sure you remember what happened yesterday, even if you've blocked it from your mind like everyone else who's seen the monsters and heroines and mind control and all those other things that have been going on in town. They used Yukari, and she's my friend! Why can't I skip one meeting to make sure she's okay?"

"Is Okamoto Yukari your only friend?" Hoshi's brown eyes began to burn.

Yoko's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"

Hoshi moved to the aisle in between desks so she was still standing opposite Yoko. "I warned Asa about you, but she wouldn't listen. She started meeting with you, she went with you for the science project, she kept telling me you weren't all that bad..."

"That was just for-" Yoko stopped before she could say 'Pretty Cure'.

Thankfully, Hoshi butted in at just the right time to make her think she'd cut Yoko off. "I don't care what it was for! For some reason, Asa stopped being creeped out by you like everyone else is. She wanted to be your friend, although I have no idea why anybody would."

Yoko blinked. "...she wanted to what?"

"You're so clueless!" Hoshi waved her arms in the air. "You blow her off yesterday and today, and then you say you just talk to her because you have to, right? I heard everything from Omemi-san, not to mention everyone else in class. Even if you thought you were telling Asa to be more conscious of other people, the insensitive one was you!"

Yoko stood for a moment, unable to reach for her bag. She finally gave a sigh and picked up her things.

"Kawada-san..."

"You didn't have to do this." Asa sweatdropped as she munched on a fire-cooked sweet potato.

Mia shrugged. "I really owed you. I wasn't the nicest person when we met. I just believed what everybody said about you." She took a bite of her own sweet potato. "So Nakayama-san did that stuff? I thought you were friends."

"Well..." Asa sighed and looked down at the path. "Maybe not friends yet. Probably not friends ever, now, but I thought we would be. She's not as bad as she seems. Sure, she's kind of scary, but I think, a lot of the time, she doesn't mean to be. Besides, even if Hoshi's been my friend since we were kids, there are some things I can only talk about with Nakayama-san."

Mia bit her lip. "I guess that's how things are sometimes. I mean, I feel really bad about what I did because..." She looked around to make sure that nobody was around and lowered her voice. "You were still there at the show after I ran away, right? Did... did those girls named Beauty Cure show up?"

"Pretty Cure," Asa automatically corrected, turning pink with embarrassment as she realized what she'd said. "Yeah, we saw them. They saved everyone."

The redhead gave a big sigh. "I couldn't mention it in front of anyone because they'd think I was crazy. Pretty Cure, the monsters, those performers in white with the eye masks... I don't know what's going on, but no one's talking about it even if they've seen it themselves. Everyone thinks it'll all go away if they ignore it, like a little kid who's breaking things and whining so people will pay attention." She smiled. "But I know you'll listen. You really like that stuff, and... even if I got mad at you for it earlier, I'm glad that there's someone who won't pretend it's not happening."

Asa took a deep breath and smiled. "...Yeah. It's that way with Nakayama-san, too, sort of. She won't pretend there's no Pretty Cure, either. We saw them once, and that's when we started talking to each other."

Mia nodded and stopped. "Here's Sapphire Park. You live just down that way, right? I should go. My house is actually in the northwest, and I didn't tell my parents I'd be late."

Asa nodded and waved as she went into the run-down park. "...Yeah."

"I'm working on the Vita," Yoko called back, walking into the garage from inside the house.

"But there's nothing wrong with-" Her father sighed as the door closed. "Sometimes I wonder about her."

"She's probably just had a bad day, Kino," her mother said, pushing back a piece of her long silver hair. "I suspect it's therapeutic."

"Who cares?" Takashi chugged a one-liter of milk. "She's just weird, that's all."

"Takashi, don't say that about your sister." Their mother shook her finger at him. "And what did we say about drinking from the carton?"

"Geez, I bought my own carton!" Takashi held his arms up as in surrender. "Your milk is fine!"

While her family moved on to other topics, Yoko gave a deep sigh and leaned against the door in the dimly lit garage. Starry, who was already awake and out of the phone, jumped around in the garage with a stained square of fabric wrapped around his head like a scarf.

"That's my oil rag..." Yoko's complaint was unusually listless. Starry blinked and gazed up at her.

"Yoko, are you okay ~susu?"

She sunk down and sat on the steps to look at the little orange creature. "...hey, Starry, did Kawada-san really want to be my friend? Or was she just thinking of Pretty Cure and the science project?"

Starry scratched his head. "Asa says that heroes are best friends ~susu."

Yoko frowned. "So it was just Pretty Cure..."

"I don't think so ~susu." Starry hopped up onto her lap and looked at her. "Asa used to say you were scary, but now she smiles when she talks about you ~susu. You're the kind of person someone will like if they get to know you ~susu."

"Scary?" Yoko raised an eyebrow. "At least you're honest... I doubt I can be her friend now, though."

Starry hugged the girl and smiled. "You just have to apologize ~susu. Asa is probably at home ~susu."

Yoko looked down at the steps to the concrete floor. "I don't think I can do it..."

Starry thought for a second. "If Yoko can't come, I'll bring Asa here ~susu! Just wait a few minutes ~susu!" He waved, hopped over to the garage door, wiggled out through a crack - she hadn't completely closed the garage door, it brought fresh air in that way - and presumably ran down the street.

"Hey, wait-" Yoko slumped over and sighed. She knew she should go after him, but she couldn't even bring herself to stand up.

Starry's little arms drooped at his sides as he plodded along the sidewalk, attracting strange looks from passersby.

"Kazahana Town is bigger than I thought ~susu..." He panted and put one paw against a tree, stopping to catch his breath. "There's still a long way to go ~susu."

Someone teleported behind him. Wait, maybe it was two someones.

"She was right," the man on the left smirked. "All we need to do..."

"Susu?" Starry turned around and gasped.

The identical one on the right picked up the little orange creature and held him away as he flailed. "All we need to do is go back and wait."

The two of them adjusted their white eye masks with matching gold accents.

"He's taken a long time..." Yoko sighed. Why had it even come to this? She would never have let him go by himself on a normal day. This was just getting worse.

Her eyes fell to her transformation phone in her bag. Yoko took in a sharp breath and reached over to pick it up. This little thing was the only reason that she and Kawada Asa ever spoke to one another, but even so... She opened it and looked at the top screen. A low-tech map of the town appeared. Yoko's signal was on the northeast end, Asa's still in the southwest. He hadn't picked her up yet. Of course he hadn't. What was she even thinking?

Yoko cringed and forced herself to stand up.

"Hey! Let me go ~susu! What do you think you're doing ~susu?" The little creature flailed, but either the townspeople had been enchanted not to notice or they didn't want to acknowledge a tiny orange thing, whether it needed rescuing or not. He struggled and flailed until Tachimany teleported out with him, leaving Yoko's oil rag to fall onto a low tree branch.


	9. Tachimany's Trap!

After her friend, Okamoto Yukari, had been used by Mekuramast and Kainatrol to try to get Moon Pieces, Nakayama Yoko had turned all of her attention to making sure that her friend was okay. This meant blowing off Kawada Asa, whether their plans were for fun, the science project or even Pretty Cure. When Asa confronted her about it, Yoko accused her of being selfish and explained that she cared more about her friend than someone she only talked to because she had to. Asa, who had thought that she and Yoko were friends, ran off, and the confrontation was the talk of Clair Academy.

Once confronted by Asa's friend Hoshi, Yoko locked herself in the garage to modify the family car. Starry, worried about the both of them, had wandered off, intent on bringing Asa back to Yoko's house to help them work it out. Yoko would have stopped him. Of course she would. The people in town would freak, it was a long way for him to walk, what if he got lost...

But she couldn't even move.

"This is pathetic," she muttered to herself, slumping over on the garage steps. "I'm pathetic. What am I even doing?"

She didn't know how many minutes she was waiting, just how many fall leaves were blowing through the opening at the bottom of the garage door. He'd taken a long time. Something made her reach for her transformation phone and open it up. The tracking device would show if Asa had moved.

She hadn't.

Yoko took a deep breath and stood. Where had Starry gone off to?

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 9: Hear Our Story! Tachimany's Trap!

The little orange creature hit the sides of the gold orb he was trapped in, not even cracking it. The orb floated in the air with no effort. This must have been the effects of the Etherium. He'd never been, but he'd heard stories from his family and the other people of the Garden of Days.

"Time and space don't matter there. It's a void, a place of nothing."

"Let me out ~susu!" He banged against the walls, but nobody paid any attention. Tachimany (they'd decided to be twelve people right now, maybe because the knight armour looked more impressive) gave identical smirks and bowed at their comrades.

"I can't believe you," Kainatrol said, scanning the crowd of Tachimany. "You're saying that you found the creature wandering around in broad daylight, completely alone and without Pretty Cure?"

"Indeed we did," said one of their bodies.

"Then it's obviously a trap." She glared as her eye mask gleamed. "I would expect this from a child like Binbeat, but not the most senior of our group."

Tachimany stood and moved together. They shifted into the two white-haired businessmen they'd been when they absconded with Starry and burst out laughing in the same voice.

"What?", Kainatrol snapped.

The body on the left stretched out, and the body on the right leaned back.

"You always give everything such strict definitions," said the one on the left.

"We're more... changeable," the one on the right added, just before they shifted into five teenage girls. One stepped in front of the others, and all of their eye masks glinted in the light, with the gold jewels on the ends sparkling.

"If it's a trap, we'll make it our trap."

"Starry? Starry?" Having changed into respectable clothing, Yoko walked down the street, bending down to look under mailboxes and cautiously peeking into alleys. This was the way that she went to school, so it was the way that he'd know to get to Asa's house, since they passed him off to one another in the classroom. Still, there was no sign of him.

The wind blew something at Yoko. She instinctively flailed and caught it in one hand, holding it out far from her face. It was a once-white tea towel that had gotten one irremovable stain too many and been sent out to the garage, where it amassed various black splotches around the orange taint.

'My oil rag,' Yoko thought, eyes wide. Starry had to be around somewhere. He'd been wearing the thing on his head and dancing around in the garage earlier to try and cheer her up. "Where-"

"You're looking for someone?"

Yoko turned around and quickly hid the rag behind her back. A girl with shiny white hair bounced up to her and smiled.

Yoko pushed her own grey hair back and narrowed her eyes. "Why do you need to know?"

The girl smiled and mimed pushing glasses up, though she didn't have any. "Just wanted to help you out, you see. Looking for a friend who stood you up? A boyfriend who dumped you without saying so?"

"I didn't ask for you or your smart remarks." Yoko glared. "I have no interest in boys, and nobody's stood me up."

"Maybe your pet ran away," the girl said with a smirk. "Is that it?"

"Go away." Yoko pushed past her with one arm.

"Mom?"

Kawada Chikane looked over from her pile of drying dishes. "What is it, Asa?"

Asa took a deep breath. "I know you're always busy, but can I ask you something?"

Her mother glanced at the old clock on their paint-chipped wall. "I've got time. Ask away."

They sat down on the couch just outside their small kitchen. Asa looked away. "Well... do you think you can still become friends with someone after you have a fight?"

Chikane looked out the window. "At times. Sometimes not."

"When?"

A pause. "Well, it has to be when you both want to. If only one person wants to be around the other person, who wants nothing to do with them, then it makes things worse."

Asa sulked and absently scratched her arm. "I guess..."

Chikane turned her gaze back to her daughter and put a hand on her shoulder. "Asa?"

Asa tilted her head. "What?"

"It's not completely hopeless." She nodded. "If you both decide that you want to be friends, you still can. It just isn't as simple as saying so. You have to want it and be sure that you do. Even after that, you have to keep working at it."

Her daughter tugged at her uniform skirt and looked at the ground. "Are you sure?"

"...I think so." Chikane stood up and frowned. "Just remember this. Don't take the people you care about for granted. Ever."

"...Thanks." Asa looked back up and stood. "That's everything. Good luck at work tonight."

The white-haired girl appeared right in front of Yoko again, as if she hadn't shoved her out of her path.

"I said, go away!"

"You're so set in your ways." The girl sighed. "There's no sense looking for friends. People will always just hurt you."

Yoko resisted flinching like she felt like doing. "The people who hurt you can change."

"No." The white-haired girl quivered almost in imitation of Yoko. "They can't and they won't."

"They can if they really want to!" Yoko stepped forward, her long hair billowing out in the fall wind. "So many people stay with someone because they think the person will change, but as long as there's no reason to, they won't. Still, if people decide to change on their own, because they see for themselves what's wrong, they can."

"Nobody would want to." The other girl's gold skirt whipped around her legs with the same gust. "What kind of reason would you have to stop being selfish?"

"Because I know better."

"That's not enough."

Yoko swatted a flying leaf away from her. "Kawada-san said in class today that everyone needs six things. Love... justice, truth... friendship... courage and happiness."

"Are you joking?" The other girl gaped. "What kind of terrible argument is that? Some ridiculous speech that sounds like it came from a children's story?"

"Knowing her, it did," Yoko said, "but that doesn't matter right now. It makes more sense than you are." She marched past the other girl, slipping her oil rag into her pocket and hoping that it didn't soil the jeans. "I'm sorry, but I'll be leaving."

Asa rolled her transformation phone over and over in her hands. Her mother's reply repeated itself in her head. It would be hard. Maybe it would even be impossible. Even so, there was still that if. At that moment, the phone slipped out of her hand and dropped onto the floor, opening wide.

She knelt down and picked it up. Wait. The tracking screen at the top was weird. Yoko's signal was usually all the way in the northeast end of town. Instead, it was moving closer and closer to the other side. Asa's side.

"She's coming." Asa gaped for a moment. Her expression slowly changed into a smile. She jumped up, grabbed her bag and bolted out the door without a sweater.

Yoko stood at the gates of Sapphire Park. Its condition hadn't changed. There were still tumbleweeds, broken bottles, and piles of garbage everywhere. If her parents found out that she was there, or anywhere in the vicinity, she'd be grounded for two weeks for recklessly endangering herself. Starry had said it was fine. Asa actually lived past there.

She gulped. Her hands tensed into fists. She took a sharp breath and marched right into the run-down park. Every step asked her what she was doing there, but Yoko kept on going, if scanning for potential diabolical kidnappers. That was how she noticed a blue-haired girl, still not having changed out of her Clair Academy uniform, running down the path with a pink and orange phone-like device in her hand.

"Nakayama-san!" Asa called out. She skidded to a stop, sending gravel and dust flying into the air.

Yoko looked to the side. "Kawada-san..." She paused. "I'm... I'm sorry. If you want nothing to do with me after this, I completely understand."

Asa started a sentence a few times, but couldn't say anything.

Yoko looked up, forcing her dark grey eyes to lock onto Asa's blue. "I need your help."

Asa's head jolted back while the rest of her stayed rooted to the ground. "Wait, help? With what?"

"Starry's missing," Yoko explained. "I found something he was carrying, and I followed the exact path that he'd take to find your house, but there's been no other sign of him."

"Oh, you still need help with that, do you?"

The two girls turned around. The slightly older white-haired girl walked up to them, her sparkly gold skirt swishing around in the fall wind.

Yoko stepped in front of Asa. "What are you doing here? I told you to go away."

"Oh, don't be like that." The girl played with her hair. "Your little speech was meant to cause some kind of change of heart, so you shouldn't be so surprised if it worked. Anyway, you still don't know how to find your pet."

"Do you?" Asa stepped forward, but Yoko blocked her path, still glaring at the white-haired girl.

"Of course!", the stranger said. "You'll just have to listen. Is there anything he'd come back for if he saw it? Something he was looking for, maybe?"

"Moon Pieces..." Asa whispered, her hand going to her phone.

The girl smirked. "Found you, Pretty Cure."

"Not so fast."

All three turned their heads to an expanse of litter-adorned dead grass. A woman with fluffy, bright red hair walked up to them, her only other identification being the pearlescent heart on the end of her necklace. That was enough for the white-haired girl to glare and step backwards.

"Dawn!" She growled. "What brought you here!"

"Concern," 'Dawn' replied. "Besides, you know I can't go by that name anymore. On to the point of this: those girls want to know where their friend is."

"Oh?" She snapped her fingers. Four identical girls jumped out from trees and bushes and stood right next to her. All five of them held up their hands, and distinct white eye masks with gold studs appeared. When they all put them on, their outfits faded away to gaudy dresses in white and gold.

"Etherium!" Asa's grip tightened on her phone. "Who are you people?"

"We are Tachimany," one body said, and all five bowed.

"Also known as the Shifting Multitudes," another said.

They shifted into eight figures in gold hooded cloaks. "For a reason, you see."

Yoko stood her ground. "Where did you take Starry?"

"Well..." One of Tachimany's bodies held out a hand. A golden orb with glowing solid walls appeared, floating in front of them, with Starry trying to bodycheck the walls.

"Ow ~susu..." He rubbed his side, looked up and gasped. "Yoko and Asa ~susu!"

The girls nodded. "We'll get you out," Yoko said.

"Hmm, hmm." The body levitating the orb looked over at the one directly beside (him? Her? In this form, it was hard to tell what they were). "Do you know what I'm thinking?"

"Of course," the other said. "We're all the same." This one drew out a black diamond-like object. Yoko, Asa and the person once called Dawn stepped back in shock.

"Is that..." Yoko blinked.

"It is," the red-haired woman said.

"No way!" Asa stared.

Body two tossed the diamond-thing at the orb in front of body one. The objects merged, and all eight bodies stepped back to allow for space. The orb grew in size, Starry suspended in the air in the middle. A distorted face with glowing eyes appeared on the front.

"Hidoinaa!"

"No way!" Asa ran up beside Yoko. "They turned the thing holding him into a Hidoinaa!"

Yoko pulled out her Moon Card and took a deep breath. "Kawada-san, I know this is taking you for granted after everything, but..."

"No time for that!" Asa smiled and slashed her own Moon Card in her phone. "Go ahead!"

Yoko's eyes widened a little. She nodded and slashed the card. They grabbed one another's hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The red-haired woman shielded her eyes and walked away as the lights appeared. Tachimany watched Pretty Cure emerge in interest.

"On behalf of the light..." Asa posed in her pink and orange dress. "I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows..." Yoko followed suit in her black and blue outfit. "I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"To ensure a peaceful era!"

Tachimany rubbed their chins in thought. "Not the exact same speech, is it?", said one body.

"Well, that's only natural," said another.

"Go and get them, Hidoinaa!", commanded a third.

It turned, looked around, and locked onto the two girls before speeding toward them. They broke into a run down the path.

"Help ~susu!" Starry struggled and flailed in the air in the middle of the transparent orb-monster. "I can't get out ~susu!"

"All right!" Sunday skidded to a stop, spraying gravel and dust into the wind, and struck an open palm out at the monster. It stumbled back a bit, but resumed its course. Night stopped, leapt back and kicked the monster between the eyes to send it further back. She landed on the ground next to her partner and watched as it shook itself and kept going.

"A Second Spin should take care of this thing quickly!" Sunday struck out at the monster as it came towards them.

"Are you crazy?" Night punched it at the same time. "Starry's stuck in there! That's probably dangerous!"

Sunday whipped her head back to look at the other girl while she fought. "If we can't do that, how are we supposed to - augh!" The Hidoinaa flew right into her and sent her flying into a tree, cracking the trunk. She dropped to the ground.

"Asa!" Night ran over to her partner. "Can you get up?"

Sunday forced herself to try to stand, clinging to the broken trunk. "What, no 'look what you did to the tree'?"

Night grabbed her under the arm and brought her to her feet. "That was the Hidoinaa's fault. Anyone could see that." She let go and kept a watch out in case the monster attacked again. "Even someone as single-minded as me."

"Night..." Sunday got back into a fighting stance and turned towards the Hidoinaa.

"Hidoinaaa!" It flew towards them again, rolling in the air.

"Help ~susu!" Starry rolled along with it, holding his head.

Night and Sunday stood back to back, heads turned to face the Hidoinaa, and struck out their palms just as Sunday had earlier. The Hidoinaa cried out and rolled further back down the path. Tachimany jumped out of its way and raised their eyebrows.

"Hidoinaa..." The Hidoinaa slowed to a stop as Pretty Cure were running after it. Just before it rolled back into place so that it was facing forward, the side where their combined attack had hit it showed, displaying a prominent crack.

"Did you see that?", Night asked.

"Absolutely," Sunday replied.

"Oh?" Tachimany shifted into the five teenage girls again. "What are you two on about now?"

Night ran up to the Hidoinaa and kicked it sideways, sending it spinning like a top. "You think you're so great just because we can't use the Second Spin now?"

Sunday dashed over to the other side and chopped it with her arm. It spun back towards her partner. "There are still some things we can do!"

Starry's eyes had turned to spirals as he floated around in the core of the orb Hidoinaa. "I'm getting dizzy ~susu..."

"Don't worry!" Night ran up to the Hidoinaa and punched it. "We'll get you out!"

Sunday ran up and hit the Hidoinaa at the same time that Night did. "Just wait a little longer!"

The orb monster started spinning in place from the impact on both sides. They looked at each other through it and nodded. Both leapt into the air above the Hidoinaa. They aimed landing kicks at its very top and came crashing down onto it.

"We're not giving up just because of that!"

The orb cracked. First a little, but the girls wouldn't let up. The cracks spread until they covered the entire orb. Finally, it shattered into transparent gold-coloured pieces. They burned up in blue fire just like they would with a Second Spin. Night and Sunday landed on their feet.

"Susu..." Starry stumbled dizzily on the ground. Night picked him up in her arms and patted him on the head.

"Interesting," Tachimany said, gathering together. "Too bad, but at least we've got something to say." They teleported out of the park.

Night sighed and hugged the little orange creature. "I'm sorry. Both of you. I knew what I should have done, but I was being too stubborn about it."

Sunday shook her head. "Hey, I was expecting too much without even asking you. It's not all your fault, you know."

Starry nodded. "Don't be sad, either of you ~susu. Everything's better now, right ~susu?"

"Yeah..." Sunday looked around for witnesses and detransformed. "I think so."

Night reluctantly detransformed as well. "Are you sure this is safe?"

"Yeah!" Asa smiled and put her phone back in its pouch. "Be more confident, Yoko."

"I'm confident enough-" Yoko froze. "What was that?"

Asa sweatdropped. "Well, you called me Asa a couple minutes ago, so I thought it was only fair."

"I did?" Oh. She closed her eyes and nodded. "Well... then it is."

The red-haired woman, now in a shaded room, sat down on a couch and sighed. "It was Tachimany this time."

The person sitting next to her turned his head. "Them again. I'm sure I can guess, but what were they after?"

"Moon Pieces, mostly." She leaned against him and sighed, playing with the pearlescent heart charm on her necklace. "What am I even doing? I should just leave things to Pretty Cure like I'm supposed to."

They stayed silent for a moment.


	10. Snowed In?

Tiny artificial clouds formed at the top of a glass tank. Tubes fed into the top, with a large plastic jug of some sort connecting them with a large mechanical machine beneath the tank. As the Lily Class looked on, the clouds began to taper downward and condense. Raindrops dripped from them down to the puddle at the bottom.

"As you can see, our weather machine works perfectly!" Misaki Izumi smiled, no doubt resenting the whispers in class of 'oh, so they can sound like normal people when they're separated'. "Alice, explain."

Her partner, Mitsuishi Seira, sighed a bit and nodded. "We've managed to recreate all forms of precipitation... as you can see from the crack in the glass over in the corner. That's when we tried hail."

"I see!" Ami-sensei started clapping. "Give them a round of applause for their science project, everyone!"

The girls of the class clapped along, and the presenting duo wheeled their contraption over to the side of the room and sat down in their desks. Ami-sensei stood and looked over her sheet.

"Hmm... Next, Kawada Asa and Nakayama Yoko with their project, 'Anatomy of a Motor Vehicle'!"

All eyes turned to the back of the room. Asa was on one side of a worn, wooden red wagon, tugging it up the aisle, while Yoko was pushing it along on the other side. Thanks to the weight of the car engine they'd rested in the wagon, it wasn't moving very quickly.

"I still think we should have seen if it could run on burning spirit," Asa grunted.

Yoko wheezed. "Suit yourself."

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 10: Snowed In? This Town's Too Warm, Right?

"...and so we'll show you how the engine works." Asa smiled. "Turn it on, Yoko!"

Yoko nodded. She turned her head to glare as the class erupted into little gasps and whispers, effectively shutting them up.

The teacher blinked, put down her paper and immediately teared up. "Ah!"

Asa and Yoko looked up at her. "What's wrong?"

Ami-sensei ran to them and clasped her hands in front of her, an aura of sparkles visible around them. "I just knew this would work! You're even on a first-name basis! The social change inside this school will bring justice to the world!"

Asa sweatdropped. "Uh, Nakata-sensei..."

"No, no, no!" She shook her head vigorously. "You've been a part of my class for two months now, Kawada-san! Everybody else calls me Ami-sensei, so you should be no exception! The unity of the class will foster truth, friendship and respect for all!"

Asa rubbed the back of her head. "Okay! I guess it's Ami-sensei, then, huh?"

Yoko blinked. Their teacher was even more intense than Asa, wasn't she?

The core of the Etherium, that ornately carved white room, was the site of another meeting. The Boss had decided to attend, judging from the ripples that occasionally appeared in the air.

"Good job, Tachimany," he said in a voice that echoed around the room. "Though it's disappointing that you didn't bring back any Moon Pieces, we now know the identities of the new Pretty Cure, or at least what they look like."

"It was nothing." Tachimany gave five identical smirks and shifted into seven little flower girls.

"We just thought..."

"...someone here..."

"...needed a lesson..."

"...in who was useless."

Kainatrol glared at them. "You got lucky."

"If you would hold off on infighting for a moment," the Boss interjected. They shut up. "Good. Now, our objective is the Moon Pieces. Up until now, Pretty Cure have been an occasional deterrent to achieving that objective. However, they have at least one Moon Piece, and-"

"What are we waiting for?" Binbeat stretched out his arms. "I'm outta here. I'm not gonna get shown up by a dumb old he-she." The childish agent teleported out, leaving his older companions to stare.

Tachimany shifted into two businessmen and frowned. "Calling us that was uncalled for. Insult aside, we're not even a singular person."

Mireyes rubbed her forehead under her veil. "That boy never changes, does he?"

The lunch bell was more than welcome for the Lily Class. Yoko approached Asa's desk as everyone else filed out. "Are you..." She looked to the side, clearly not used to this sort of thing.

Okamoto Yukari popped up beside her, giving a smile as big as her glasses lenses. "I think she's trying to ask if you want to eat with us."

Asa stood up and pulled the convenience store-made lunchbox out of her bag. "With the both of you? Sure, why not?"

"Hey, hey, hey, hold it."

The three of them turned around to see Kondou Hoshi, hands on her hips, her short brown hair even more of a mess than usual. She was glaring squarely at Yoko between the other two.

"Can I have an explanation?" Hoshi marched forward like she was going to beat somebody up. "You, Nakayama Yoko, basically ripped Asa to shreds last week when you decided you were going to let her down to look after Okamoto and said it was just fine because you weren't friends or anything. Now all three of you are buddies again? You're even calling each other by your first names!"

Yukari sweatdropped and rubbed the back of her head. "I totally understand if you're feeling left out..."

Hoshi pointed her finger at Okamoto. "Listen for a second, will you? It's not that!" She turned her attention on Asa, who was quivering with an odd expression on her face. "Asa, you're being too nice. Why are you guys suddenly friends again? Why did you become friends in the first place?"

Asa waved her arms. "Hoshi, seriously, they're good people! It's a long story, okay? Besides, you can go sit with the other girls again now."

Hoshi stood there for a minute. She finally sighed and crossed her arms. "What, Omemi and her fanclub? They're nice if they like you, but I don't feel like dealing with them right now." She locked eyes with each of the other girls. "If you're gonna insist on this, then let me come too. It's just lunch, so it's no problem, right?"

Yoko sweatdropped. Yukari smiled. Asa brightened and gave the thumbs up. The odd group made their way to the lunch area.

Not many people had been on the roof that day. It was probably too windy, so they were all eating indoors. It was in this way that a small boy in a foreign-looking white and green school uniform that had been outdated for nearly a century managed to materialize and climb through the window to the Lily Class' room without anybody noticing.

"Booooring." Binbeat stuck his tongue out at the empty classroom. "Are Pretty Cure really gonna be here?" Silence; of course, no one else was in the room. He wandered around for a little bit, pulling a marker out of one person's bag and drawing a hideous blob-monster on the desk of the person next to her. The boy grinned at his handiwork and drew on a few more desks before tossing the marker in the corner, scattering the contents of Ami-sensei's tissue box across the room, and writing in a strange language on the chalkboard. Pretty Cure were long forgotten.

He moved over to the other end of the board and tripped over the edge of a large contraption.

"Ow!"

The boy grabbed his eye mask out of the air and quickly put it back on before he stood up, not caring about the rest of the mess that was now settling down around him.

"What is this thing, anyway?" He poked it a few times and stood on his tiptoes to read the inscription. It didn't make any sense. Other worlds' writing systems were hard to get used to; he hadn't even bothered with the writing on that other sign where he'd taken the strange-looking bread from. Binbeat shrugged and pressed a button. The machine whirred to life, water pumping at the side, and snow began to fall inside the tank.

"Whoooooaaaa."

That was totally awesome. Binbeat's eyes filled with stars and his head with visions of stealing the science project. If he had a weather machine, it would be snowing in the Etherium forever and he could declare a snowball war on everyone! That would make it a whole lot less boring over there.

He drew out a Hidoinaa crystal. No way was he lifting this thing.

Most of the students were gathered around tables and desks, eating in groups. The whispers had picked up when the four girls entered the room together, but Hoshi just glared in their general direction and sat down. The other three looked at each other sadly.

"I'm guessing this happens often with you." Hoshi made a face.

"For the past month, really." Yoko turned away a bit. "It's not too late to turn back, you know."

"You don't get it." Hoshi leaned on her hand to prop up her head. "It's always too late. They just pretend it's not and keep whatever you did as hidden ammo in case you mess up again. I'm sick and tired of them."

"...Me too."

The four spun their heads around to the end of the table, as did everybody else in the room, at least the Lily Class and their age-cohorts. Ogata Mia fidgeted, her hair bow drooping at the back.

"Can I sit here?"

"Oh, sure!" Yukari moved over and Mia pulled up a chair. The lunchroom noise got louder again.

"Wow," Hoshi laughed. "We're a weird group, all right."

Yoko turned pink. "I'm not weird."

"You're as weird as I am," Asa chirped.

"That's not exactly reassuring," Yoko sighed under her breath.

"Everyone!" Someone at another table stood up, and everyone turned to her. "Look out the window!"

Snowflakes were flying everywhere outside, left, right and diagonal. The snow was quickly covering the trees with their falling leaves and the ones that were still stubbornly green, and thick, grey clouds were covering the sky.

Yoko raised her eyebrows. "Does it not snow often here?"

"In Kazahana City? Not for years." Mia blinked. "It's too warm."

"Hmm..."

"Whoa."

The Lily Class stared at the mess that their room was in. Desks had been overturned, the entire chalkboard had been covered in writing, someone's paper-mache volcano was bubbling over, and papers and boxes were strewn across the floor.

"What a mess..." Yukari balanced on tiptoes to her desk, trying not to step on anything on the floor.

Yoko clenched her fists at her sides. "This is absolutely unforgivable!"

Asa sweatdropped. "Uh, Yoko..."

"What?" She whirled to face her teammate with an Ice Queen Nakayama glare.

Asa rubbed the back of her head. "...nothing."

"Incoming!", someone shouted behind them. Just as the five and whoever else was inspecting turned around, Ami-sensei elbowed through the crowd of students at the door and gaped at the mess.

"It's... it's..."

"Terrible?", Yoko offered.

"Annoying?", Hoshi shrugged.

"Tragic!" The teacher threw her hands up to the ceiling and wailed as if she were pleading to the fluorescent lights above. "Such vandalism during the lunch hour, when no one was here to stop it! This must have been a carefully cultivated attack upon the Lily Class! Why else would a day be chosen where your beautiful science projects were all gathered here to be defiled? Just look at that poor project in the corner!" She pointed to one with bread crumbs scattered where the display used to be. Its posterboard read 'THE FORMATION OF MOLD ON DIFFERENT TYPES OF BREAD'.

"They stole our bread?" Mia blinked.

"Why would they?" Hoshi scratched her head.

"Because they're terrible people!" Ami-sensei may or may not have had a tear in her eye. "They've targeted the Lily Class for some unknown slight and made it so that we'll have to clean up this mess! What's more, they've done it on a day when we're snowed in! I can't even teach class until the room is cleaned up, and we're trapped in here!"

"Did she just say we were snowed in?" Izumi Misaki looked to her friends.

"She said we were snowed in." Misaki Izumi nodded. "It's this weird weather."

"Yes, it's got to be the weather," Izumi Misaki said. "Because it's very weird."

Ami-sensei sniffled and started picking things up off the floor. "If those boys in the Rose Class did this, they're all getting two weeks of detention for this injustice!"

Mitsuishi Seira tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder and made her way to the window. "Oh, come on! This much snow gives us a snow day? There isn't even five centimetres yet! This is pathetic!"

Omemi Emiru laughed a little as she and her cohorts walked over there. "Kazahana City just isn't prepared for snow, or did you forget? You really are a foreigner at heart."

Seira frowned. "Come on, girls. It was only a few years I spent out of the country."

"It doesn't matter, Alice." Emiru adjusted her glasses. "Enjoy this 'pathetic' snow while it's here."

Asa carefully walked up to the seething Yoko and put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, Yoko?"

"What is it now!", Yoko snapped.

Asa gulped but stood her ground. They were friends now. "Can't you hear something?"

Yoko took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Maybe... She opened them again and ran over to the side window at the front of the room, trying her best not to step on the mess. Asa rushed behind her, but may or may not have left footprints on somebody's homework. They forced the window open and stuck their heads out into the air, getting snowed on.

"What are they doing?", whispered one classmate at the back of the room.

"Who knows?", said another.

Asa and Yoko listened closely and then looked at each other.

"An organ?", Yoko asked.

"Uh-huh," Asa said.

"You mean..."

"Of course."

Misaki Izumi surveyed the room. "Hey, Alice, where did you put our project? I don't think it's here."

"It's definitely not here," Izumi Misaki chimed in. "Where did you put your project?"

"Ami-sensei!" Asa pulled her head back into the classroom and ran over to the sulking teacher. "Hey, Ami-sensei, can we be excused? It's to find the person who trashed our room."

Ami-sensei clasped her hands and looked up at her with stars in her eyes. "Absolutely! The two of you, fighting for justice against the terrible vandals and saboteurs who make this society corrupt and painful! It's like something out of a dream! You may go at once!"

As Asa and Yoko ran out of the classroom, a pink-haired girl raised her hand. "Can I go, too?"

Ami-sensei sat straight up and narrowed her eyes. "Certainly not, Araki-san. You just want to skip."

She grumbled. "It was worth a try."

"Oh yeah! Oh yeah! I'm awesome! Oh yeah!" Binbeat banged on the keys of the giant ivory organ that he'd summoned on top of the roof. "This is the best idea ever!"

"Hidoinaa!" The weather machine had turned into a Hidoinaa and, instead of snowing inside its tank, was spreading snow all around the school.

Asa opened the door to the roof and stared. "...Well, at least we know where the weather machine went."

"Hey, you guys!" The little boy had noticed them, and he stopped playing the organ and hopped off the seat, clutching his side and grimacing as he did so. "What are you doing here?"

Yoko pointed dramatically. "I should ask the same thing of you! You vandalized our classroom and ran away with somebody's science project! What did you think you were doing!"

Binbeat held his stomach. "You're mad about that? You're the ones who put out that gross food. I feel sick now 'cause of you..."

Yoko blinked. "Don't tell me..."

Asa sweatdropped. "He ate the moldy bread."

"Is that what that was!" He winced. "Who puts moldy bread out in the open? I thought it was free food!"

Starry popped his head out of Yoko's transformation phone. "Didn't it have a sign on it ~susu?"

Binbeat waved his arms in the air. "I'm from another world! Do you think I can read your weird writing?" He walked over to the Hidoinaa more slowly than usual. "Fine, I'll go home, but I'm taking this with me!"

"Oh, no, you don't!" Yoko took her phone and Moon Card out. "That Hidoinaa was somebody's science project! I absolutely won't let you get away with stealing it and jeopardizing their grades!"

"You tell him ~susu!", Starry said from inside the phone.

Yoko and Asa looked at each other, swiped their Moon Cards and grabbed each other's hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

They felt like they were spinning through the air as their Pretty Cure uniforms materialized on them, but all anyone watching would see was a flash of light and then the two Cures standing where they had been before.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Binbeat stepped forward, but doubled over, looking as green as the coloured portions of his uniform. "Hidoinaa," he managed, "go get 'em."

"Hidoinaa!" The monster sent a freezing wind at the girls, cutting them with flying ice crystals. They put their arms up to protect their faces and dug their heels into the concrete.

"How are we supposed to fight this thing?" Night winced from the pain and started forcing her way forward through the wind. "It didn't snow too much in the city, either!"

Sunday shut her eyes tightly and dragged her feet forward as well. "We can do this! Just..." She opened her eyes and looked up at the monster. "We just have to find some way to beat it!"

The Hidoinaa stomped forward. The wind forced the Cures back a bit. "Hidoinaaaa!"

Night suddenly looked at her partner. "Get back!"

Sunday's eyes widened. "What?"

Cure Night jumped backwards into the air. The wind pushed her further, but she spun into a backflip and landed with her feet planted firmly on the wire fence, held up by the wind and by a hand grabbing onto the wire. Sunday nodded and did the same thing, again pushed by the monster into the fence and impacting it with her feet.

"Let's get this over with."

They grabbed each other's inside hands.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

A blue glow formed around them, diverting the miniature blizzard.

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

They let go of the fence with their outside hands.

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

Cure Sunday and Cure Night launched themselves forward. The force of the wind was pushing them as much as they were resisting it. They struggled to fly forward, and the Hidoinaa looked like it was concentrating as much as a giant brainless monster could.

"Come on..." Night shut her eyes and focused.

"Let's do this..." Sunday's glare at the monster intensified.

Their grip on each other's hands grew tighter.

"BREAK THROUGH IT!"

Night and Sunday flew forward and forced the blizzard out of the way. The blue glow around them made them look like a strange, inverted comet blasting right through the Hidoinaa, leaving a melting hole and shattered glass behind as they crashed into the concrete. When it faded and the girls stood up, the Hidoinaa had burned to a crisp and the weather machine sat there, untouched. The snow began to disappear like it had never been there.

Binbeat gave a moan that was half complaining, half food poisoning. "You guys suck. I'm... I'm goin' home." He vanished into the air.

Starry popped out of the transformation phone. "Good job ~susu!"

Pretty Cure detransformed and sighed.

"For obvious reasons, we are no longer considered 'snowed in'!" Ami-sensei practically glowed as she announced this from the front of the room. "Furthermore, Misaki-san and Mitsuishi-san now have their project back!"

"Ours is still gone, though," Mia said. "At least, our bread is."

"Don't worry." The teacher pushed back her black hair and smiled. "You'll still get the mark. I didn't really want to take moldy bread home, so I made my observations here."

Mia and her partner sighed with relief. "Thank goodness..."

Asa picked up the last of the fallen papers. "Who knew this mess would take all afternoon to clean up?"

Yoko spritzed the chalkboard with water and rubbed off the erasure residue with a towel. "It's ridiculous, is what it is."

Hoshi hoisted up an overturned desk. "Well, at least we don't have class now."

Yukari giggled as she sorted her things. "You know, the teacher's still here, Kondou-san."

Omemi Emiru looked over in their direction from the back of the room with everybody else. She adjusted her glasses and the light gleamed off of them.


	11. Takashi's in Love?

Though Nakayama Yoko had feared that the Lily Class would discover her hobby of working on cars thanks to the theme of her and Kawada Asa's partner science project, it had gone off without complications, unless she counted how heavy the engine was that she'd had to drag to school. Afterwards, though, Binbeat had stolen another science project, a weather machine, and turned it into a Hidoinaa that snowed in the school. Cure Night and Cure Sunday made short work of the monster, and the Etherium agent left without a fight, sick to his stomach from having accidentally eaten moldy bread.

This was a small comfort, but they still had ten Moon Pieces to find, and there were still the problems of day-to-day life to deal with. Such as...

"Takashiiiiiiii!"

Yoko burst into the house from the garage, glaring around the foyer.

"Yoko, be quiet. The neighbours will hear you if you keep yelling like that." Her mother, Nakayama Sai, looked over from the living room, watching some soap opera or another. "And what did I tell you about wearing oil-soaked rags in the house?"

"I know..." Yoko crossed her arms and looked off to the side.

"That's better. Now what did your brother do?"

"He took my touchup paint!" Her eyebrow twitched. "My Red #61. I need it for that scratch on the Vita from when Dad parked it too close to the wall."

Sai shook her head. "I'll talk with him later about hiding your things again. He's out right now."

Yoko visibly sighed. "The gym, right?"

"Maybe." Her mother blinked. "I don't think he took his gym bag, though. He might have been going to the shrine."

Yoko looked back at her mother. "The shrine?"

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 11: Takashi's in Love? Who'd Want Him?

The Awaya Shrine wasn't far from the Nakayama house. Of course, considering the size of Kazahana City, nothing was far from anything, but the Nakayamas lived in the northeast, and the shrine was at the very north edge of the town. The back of the main building was right near the side of a mountain. It was these mountains that sheltered the town from nearly all sides, a near-perfect circle in the middle of a rock shield.

Takashi stared at the coin in his hand and sighed. "One yen... Man, I'm a cheapo." He looked up and turned slightly red, despite nobody else being around. "Hey, spirits, no offense, okay? I'm just low on money right now. I bought a charm from these guys the other day, anyway."

No answer. He turned his head away and tossed the coin into the box, picked up his gym bag and left. A wind blew through the cherry trees, which by now had lost every leaf they had.

Something small and black sparkled by the gate. A white-gloved hand picked it up.

"The shrine?"

It was December now, and the Lily Class had settled into a new pattern in the days since the science presentations. Most of the girls gathered on one side of the room before class started, just as always, but the leftover ones were no longer strewn everywhere. Yoko now sat with Kawada Asa, who was half-looking at her and half-doodling DaiFighter in her notebook, Kondou Hoshi, who absently stomped on a refugee ant in her seat, Okamoto Yukari, who was hiding non-regulation jewelry under her uniform again (hey, it was a great deal!), and Ogata Mia, who fidgeted in her chair and occasionally looked over at the other group. On occasion, a few others would drift toward their side of the room, so their circle was growing a bit.

"That's what I said." Yoko gave a brisk sigh. "I don't understand him at all. He hasn't been to the shrine when it wasn't New Year's or a festival since we were kids."

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "Nakayama, I don't know about you, but I never understand boys. Brothers especially."

"Maybe he had something he really wanted to wish for?" Yukari played with her necklace before tucking it back under her uniform collar.

"Maybe he has some great destiny he has to fulfill!" Asa grinned. Everyone else in the circle sweatdropped. "...What? It could happen!"

Mia raised her hand slightly. "Do you think he's in love?"

Asa blinked. "What?"

Hoshi boggled. "You kidding me?"

Yoko's mouth dropped open. "Love? Who - who would even..."

Yukari giggled. "It seems you've rendered Ice Queen Nakayama speechless, Mia-chan. Congratulations!"

Yoko snapped back to normal. "Yukari, I told you to stop that."

Yukari played with a piece of the braid wrapped around her head. "Well, it's true."

Mia looked away. Hoshi frowned and snapped her fingers in front of her face. "Hey, Ogata, cheer up. They do sell charms there. You might be right, weird as it is."

Mia turned as pink as her hair bow, embarrassed at being pointed out. "If you say so."

Yoko looked out the window. "But who would it be?"

On the other side of the room, Omemi Emiru narrowed her eyes at her group. Mitsuishi Seira choked on her water bottle, and Misaki Izumi quickly ran to help her. Emiru nodded to herself as the fluorescent lights gleamed off her glasses.

"No fair." Binbeat pouted, pulling himself out of yet another shrubbery. He was wearing modern children's clothing instead of the aged school uniform and eye mask he usually had, and leaves and twigs were sticking out of his hair. "I just got over being sick from poison food. Why do I have to do this?"

Mireyes sighed, standing behind him. Her eyes were still hidden by her veil, but the dress she was wearing was simpler than her Etherium uniform. "That was your own fault and you know it. Even being unable to read the language here does not excuse your ignorance at eating moldy bread."

"What's your problem today?" He scratched his nose. "Are you just mad 'cause I dropped the Moon Piece and now we gotta find it again? It'll turn up someplace."

"You aren't taking this seriously." The old woman rubbed her forehead. "We're supposed to be working together, yet I feel like your babysitter."

Binbeat groaned and went back to searching. "Fine, fine. I still say I shouldn't have to work for the next month."

Four white-haired men in labcoats appeared in the clearing. Mireyes looked up without alarm. If the teleporting hadn't given the people away as belonging to the Etherium, the fact that all four were completely identical meant that they could only be Tachimany.

"What brings you here?", she asked.

One body shrugged. "We just wanted to warn you."

Binbeat popped his head out of the bushes again. "Huh?"

Another one of Tachimany's bodies shook his head. "Kainatrol's got a Moon Piece and she's lording it over everyone. She found it at the shrine in the north end."

A third body sighed. "Try and stay out of her way or she'll tear into you for not finding one."

"We are finding one." Binbeat stuck his tongue out. "In your face and in hers too."

"Binbeat." Mireyes facepalmed. "What have I told you about shooting the messengers? They're being courteous by telling us."

Binbeat sighed. "Geez, fine. You remind me of my sister."

The others went silent.

He looked up at them. "Whaaat?"

Tachimany shook their heads in unison. "We've got to be going. Remember what we said." A magic circle drew itself under them, and they vanished.

Mireyes lightly swatted Binbeat on the head. "You should know better than that. Tachimany don't like talking about our original worlds."

Binbeat kicked a rock away. "No fair. I bet their world just sucked and that's why."

"All our worlds 'sucked'." Mireyes walked over to the bushes and rifled through them for the missing Moon Piece. "That's why we handed them over."

Binbeat grumbled and wandered away. Mireyes tilted her head down, her veil still covering her eyes. "You're still too young to understand."

The lunch bell had rung, and nearly everyone had left the classroom. Emiru stood at the door and counted who was still there.

Kawada, Nakayama, Kondou, Yukari-chan, Mia... Fujisawa? Oh, no, Fujisawa's leaving. Wait, what's Suzu doing with them? Her nails dug into her skin as she watched a green-haired girl lean over to the misfits' gathering and open her lunch box.

"Emiru-chan?" Misaki Izumi tapped her on the shoulder. "Aren't we going for lunch?"

"Yeah, we're going for lunch." Izumi Misaki lightly grabbed her opposite arm. "Come on, Emiru-chan."

Emiru turned around and adjusted her glasses. "Yes, that's right. Same tree as always?" They nodded. She began walking with the two of them and a handful of other girls from the Lily Class. "Oh, Alice, I needed to talk with you about something."

"Me?", Seira asked.

"Yes, you." Emiru smiled. "The rest of you, go on ahead, okay? We'll catch up with you later."

The other girls dispersed, and Emiru led her blonde companion into an empty hall. She stood between Seira and the shoe lockers. "So, I hear you have a thing for a certain someone in the Rose Class."

Seira nearly choked. "How did you - "

"I have my sources," Emiru said. She always did. "Besides, you made it just a little too obvious this morning when you heard Nakayama's brother might like someone. Am I right or am I right?"

Seira blushed and looked off to the side. "What does it have to do with you? Is this about your last birthday party when I got you the same thing Misaki-chan did?"

"Alice, Alice, Alice!" Emiru laughed. "What, do you think I'm mad at you? No way. I just want to help you out."

"You really don't have to do that."

"Your face is burning red, Alice. I think I do have to do that." She smirked. "If you just do me a few favours - nothing big! You'd do them anyway! - then your problems will be solved this afternoon, or my name isn't Omemi Emiru."

Seira put a hand up to the side of her face. "Well, I guess I can rely on you..."

"You guess?" Emiru flipped back a piece of her short green hair. "You're just embarrassed, that's all. You know I can do it."

That's right. I can do anything I want. Even now...!

The core room of the Etherium was mostly deserted for the day, leaving only the red-haired animal tamer visibly inside. Kainatrol twirled the black, shiny Moon Piece between her fingers.

"The number on this one is twelve." She tossed it up into the air, where it caught in the middle of the room and floated there in suspended animation. "I'll hand this to you to hold on to, Boss."

The air rippled in the middle of the room. "Good work, Kainatrol. That's only our first, but Pretty Cure aren't likely to have much of an advantage."

"Speaking of Pretty Cure..." Kainatrol tugged at one of her wrist-length white gloves. "With all due respect, Boss, I'm sure you noticed all the activity between the worlds around us and the one they live on. Interference is at an unprecedented level. It's as if every faction out there decided to strike their targets all at once. You know what this means, right?"

The invisible Boss paused. "Go on."

"Any of these worlds that have been attacked are likely to have invoked the legend of Pretty Cure and gone to the world it requires. This means that there could be dozens, no, hundreds of active Cures where just a year ago there would have been clueless, weak civilians in their place. Why did we choose now to go to the Garden of Days to try and get back the Moon Dial?"

"For the very reason you gave."

Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "Excuse me?"

"If there are hundreds of active Pretty Cures, then there will be one of two outcomes. The first is that the planet may not be able to provide the power they all need, and the ones we oppose will fall quickly, allowing us to obtain the Moon Pieces and reconstruct the Moon Dial that much more easily. The second is that they all do have enough power to fight their battles, in which case we still only have to deal with the two in Kazahana City, but everyone the other teams are opposing is likely to fall..."

"...and, if that happens, we can take their worlds ourselves and erase them to expand the Etherium." Kainatrol nodded. The red jewels on her eye mask glimmered. "Either way, we win."

"As long as the Moon Dial is completed, that is," said the voice. "Remember that that is the top priority."

"Of course."

"You know this can't be a good idea."

Asa clamped a hand over Yoko's mouth. "Shh! They'll hear us!"

The two of them were hiding at the side wall of Kazahana City Flower Shoppe. It was an old building, with grey paint chipping and peeling off of creaky wooden boards, some with holes worn into them. It was through one of these holes that Asa was staring while Yoko pressed her ear to another weak spot in the wall. It may not need saying that this was entirely Asa's idea.

Starry popped open Asa's transformation phone and poked his little head out. "What are we doing ~susu?"

Asa put her finger over her mouth. "Yoko's brother just went in here." She picked up the phone and held Starry up to the hole in the wall. Takashi was looking over a few flower arrangements. "She said he's been acting weird lately, so we're checking it out."

Takashi coughed and walked up to one of the assistants. "Uh, hey. Is Mitsuishi-san around?"

"She should be off work in a few minutes," he said. "I'll go get her from the back."

Yoko looked at Asa. "Mitsuishi-san? Why is Takashi looking for her?"

Asa thought for a moment. "She transferred out a couple years ago to go to school in another country, right? Then she came back here, right?"

Yoko blinked. "Well, yes. That's what I've heard. I only moved here a few months before you changed schools, you know."

Asa held up her index finger and grinned. "I bet she was a spy. Your brother's probably working for the government and secretly meeting with her to get whatever information she found out while she was overseas. You know how everyone calls her Alice instead of her actual name? I bet that's her codename, and Mitsuishi Seira probably isn't her real name, either, and..."

Yoko put a hand on Asa's shoulder. "Just stop. Here I thought you were getting less ridiculous."

Asa pouted. "It could happen."

Starry gestured at the hole in the wall with his head. "Look ~susu!"

Asa and Yoko peered through it. A girl with long blonde hair in a bright orange Kazahana City Flower Shop apron was standing with Takashi. That was her, all right. She shifted around and forced a smile.

"Nakayama-kun! What did you need?"

Takashi rubbed the back of his head. "Uh, I've been meaning to talk to you for a while, and someone told me you'd be here."

"Emiru-chan..." Seira sighed, slightly red. "It was her, right?"

Outside the wall, Yoko blinked and stared. "Ogata-san was right." She quickly turned to Asa. "We shouldn't be listening in on this."

Asa pulled away from the wall and sighed. "What a disappointment..."

Starry looked to the side, cried out "Ah!", and shut the transformation phone closed. Asa and Yoko turned around, only to sweatdrop. There, a child in ragged green pants and a grass-stained white shirt was rummaging in the garbage can. His dusty green hair and obnoxious humming identified him even without his uniform.

"Binbeat!" Asa pointed dramatically.

"Huh?" Binbeat stuck his head out of the garbage can. "Gah! You guys!" He flailed and pointed back at them. "You took the Moon Piece, didn't you?"

"Moon Piece?" Asa sweatdropped. "Which Moon Piece?"

"Don't give me that!" He stomped his feet. "I had one and I lost it and I've been wasting this whole dumb day looking for it again! Mean old Kainatrol got one and I want mine back too!"

The girls stared blankly.

"Um... we don't have it," Asa said.

Yoko grabbed her arm. "More to the point, they probably heard us through that hole in the wall!"

Asa gulped. "Run!"

The two girls ran down the alley, bowling past Binbeat as they did so. Judging by the "AAARGH!" followed by footsteps behind them, he was chasing them. They turned left behind the newspaper building and ran through the empty bike path.

"Thank goodness it's December!" Asa looked behind her. "Hey, Yoko, are you okay?"

Yoko stumbled, running at least a meter behind where Asa was. "Wait -" She wheezed. "Wait up, okay?" She gasped for breath. "I don't run!"

"Huh?" Asa nearly tripped over her feet. "Wha-!" Suddenly, she was shot backwards, bowling into the unathletic Yoko. The girls landed in a twisted pile on the pavement, straining to look up at what had caused this.

An old woman in a plain purple dress walked towards them. "Pretty Cure, I presume?"

Seira, still with her work apron on, and Takashi walked into the alley, confused.

"I don't see anyone," she said.

"Probably took off," he replied. "Least they didn't vandalize anything, hey?"

"Right..." Seira took a deep breath.

Takashi blinked. "You okay, Mitsuishi-san?"

"Yes!" She gulped. "And thank you."

"Huh?" He scratched his head. "You're welcome, but for what?"

She looked to the side. "Not calling me Alice. Everyone's called me that since I went on the foreign exchange. At first it was cute, but it feels like I've given up being Seira without meaning to."

They'd started walking again without meaning to. He shrugged. "Well, it's your actual name, right? If you want to be called it and not that, I don't care."

Her face turned red. "That makes one of you."

Takashi quirked his head to the side. "No one listens when you say you don't want to?"

"Not really." She kept walking. "I can't even say that. It would be ungrateful, right? I can't be the normal Seira anymore, even though I grew up with these people. I'm practically a foreigner to them. If that's the case, then I might as well be the cool foreigner, even if it's not me."

They walked for a moment, taking a left at the edge of the newspaper building. Seira looked up at the clouds. "I'm probably scaring you away, telling you my life story."

He laughed nervously. "Nah. I'm the one who's randomly talking to you..."

"...Yeah."

Asa pulled herself up off of Yoko and pointed at the old woman. "You're... um... that one person! The one from the construction site!"

"Mireyes." She pulled out a crystal ball and levitated it between her two hands. Instantly, her simple civilian dress was replaced by a white dress layered with purple and white shawls. "Remember it next time, girls."

On the other side of them, Binbeat caught up to them and slipped on his eye mask, similarly transforming into his green and white antiquated school uniform. "Yeah! Now give us that Moon Piece!"

"We don't have it!" Yoko stood up and put her hands on her hips. "Where did you lose it?"

"I looked there!" Binbeat stuck his tongue out. "It's really boring sorting through rocks and not finding one, okay? I didn't see anything black or shiny or anything with a number on it there."

Asa sweatdropped. "...You know they can change shape to look like other things, right?"

Mireyes crossed her thin arms, her crystal ball still levitating in front of her. "Binbeat, you didn't scan any of those rocks to see if they could be the Moon Piece, did you?"

Binbeat's mouth hung open. He laughed nervously. "Uh... maybe..."

"Binbeat." The old woman facepalmed. "I was trying to teach you to be more accountable for your actions by not using Future Sight. I see this hasn't worked."

"Hey! No fair!" Binbeat stomped and pointed at Asa and Yoko. "They got Moon Pieces, right? Let's just steal theirs!"

"No way!" Asa opened her transformation phone, and Yoko drew out hers and did the same. They slashed the Moon Cards and held hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The pillar of light was visible down the bike path. Takashi and Seira cautiously nodded at each other and ran towards it. They ducked behind a large tree and stared as two girls, one in orange and pink and the other in black and blue, emerged from the glow when it faded.

"On behalf of the light..." The one in orange put her hand on her hip. "I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows..." The one in black did the same with the opposite hand. "I am Cure Night!"

Their free hands shot up in the air. "We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..." Sunday took her raised hand down and pointed at the old woman by virtue of her being in front of her.

Night did the same. "To ensure a peaceful era!"

Takashi rubbed his eyes. "What was that?"

Seira shook her head. "I've seen them before. I was at the library, looking for books for my science project, when it was attacked by some weird thing. We all ran out just when these girls showed up. Nobody said anything, since no one wanted to believe it happened."

Takashi stared at the scene.

"Kyahaha." Binbeat, still standing behind them, summoned his white carved organ and slammed on the keys.

"Ow!" Sunday covered her ears. "We're trying to fight here!"

"Fine!" Binbeat smiled widely and began to play music on the organ. His hands started to give off a green glow as he did so, and small explosions peppered the bike path. The Cures jumped, ran and stumbled to dodge.

"Since when could you do that?" Sunday dashed to the side to avoid one blast and was knocked back by another.

"Since always," he shrugged. "I like Hidoinaa better."

In the meantime, Mireyes' crystal ball had vanished and a magic circle had drawn itself in the air behind her.

Night ran toward her and punched. "If Sunday has the kid under control, then I'll take care of you!"

Mireyes smiled. Her eyes flashed purple, the glow visible behind her veil, and she dodged out of the way.

Night stumbled and righted herself. "How did you move that fast?"

"Just because I'm old doesn't mean I can't fight," she snapped. "Especially when I can see what you're going to do."

"You can what?"

"Don't look so surprised. I am Mireyes, the Mystical Seer. What did you think my power would be?"

"Well, excuse me!" Night put her hands on her hips. "I'm not Sunday!"

Binbeat stopped playing and stretched his arms in the air. "You guys are losers. Can you just give us the Moon Pieces now?"

Sunday ran forward and kicked the organ. Her foot impacted with a loud crack, leaving a crumbling dent in the outside with a series of cracks coming out of it.

"Hey!" Binbeat jumped off the seat and threw a punch at her. "No fair!"

Sunday blocked the punch with her hand and pushed the child away lightly. "You weren't being fair either! You were just going to attack us once we gave them to you, right?"

He blinked. "Hey, how'd you know? Mireyes, this girl reads minds!"

Mireyes ducked unded Night's kick and sent her flying back with an invisible force. "I hate to tell you this, Binbeat, but you're just being obvious."

Binbeat crossed his arms. "Fine, I'm leaving." He teleported out with his fractured white instrument.

Sunday waved her arms. "Cheap!" She turned around and took a battle stance to face Mireyes.

"That boy." The old woman shook her head. "As easy as it would be to take the both of you down right here, I need to make sure he doesn't get into any trouble."

"Aww, come on," Sunday whined. "That's so cliche!"

"I don't care what it is." Mireyes glared at them. "I'll be going now." She vanished into the air.

Night sighed. "All right, Sunday, let's get back. We need to find that Moon Piece if it's around, don't we?"

Sunday pumped her fist in the air. "Yeah, you're right! I won't let lazy bad guys get me down! We'll kick their butts next time for sure!"

From behind the tree, Takashi and Seira stared.

"...what."

Kainatrol bent her riding crop backwards and forwards in her hands.

"Tachimany, you're back. You didn't find anything, did you?"

Tachimany had taken the form of two salarymen and were standing back to back. "Not everyone can be you, Kainatrol," they said in perfect unison.

She smacked her riding crop into her hand. "You're mocking me."

"No, we're not," said one body.

"We have no reason to," said the other.

Kainatrol sighed. Maybe she was just being paranoid. "The others?"

Tachimany shifted into six little girls in white dresses, each carrying an armful of goldenrods. One twirled in front of the rest.

"We haven't seen Mekuramast all day."

"Mireyes and Binbeat were looking for one," another little girl-Tachimany piped up.

"He got mad when we said to hurry it up," said the third.

Kainatrol rubbed her forehead and then adjusted her eye mask. "Why am I not surprised?"

The Tachimany in the corner pouted and crossed her arms in a perfect imitation of a child. "He started talking about his world all of a sudden. Wasn't it his sister who...?"

Kainatrol's eyes flashed at that. She whipped around to face the other way and began walking away from them.

"Tch. What about his sister? Siblings do nothing but ruin your life. I'm going out." She teleported out of the room.

Tachimany raised their eyebrows all at once. "What's she doing?"

Takashi and Seira were walking down the bike path back towards the store. They looked away from each other awkwardly, occasionally starting a word but cutting out at the end.

"So, um."

Pause.

"Yeah."

And so on. A few meters away, Yoko was fighting the urge to peer past the edge of the large tree she was hiding behind, and Asa was on the ground by her, scanning various rocks and bits of metal with her phone and Scan Card.

"Hey, Yoko, I think I found the Moon Piece!"

"Shh!"

Seira looked behind her, saw nothing, and turned her attention back to Takashi. "Um... I have a confession to make."

He paused. "...Yeah? What is it?"

Yoko stared down at the very interesting Moon Piece that Asa had picked up off the ground.

"Actually, there's two. I, um. I was wondering if you wanted to go to Suzu-chan's party..."

Asa looked up at Yoko. "She was having a party?", she whispered. "She never mentioned that at lunch today."

Yoko did not feel embarrassed or at all like a voyeur. Really. Very interesting Moon Piece.

"And, uh... okay, I'll just tell you." Seira looked down the alley next to them, saw no one, and sighed with relief. "Probably the only reason Emiru-chan helped set this meeting up is because she wants me to get blackmail on your sister."

Serial number two, that's very interesting - what! Yoko froze, wide-eyed. Asa scrambled to stare over the side of the tree.

"Blackmail? What?"

Seira crossed her arms. "Normally I'd be able to stand up to her, but it's an embarrassing subject, and - oh, who am I fooling? She can do anything she wants. She's got something on everyone in class. I'm sure she was resting on that until Nakayama-san and Kawada-san became friends."

Takashi raised his eyebrow. "What's the deal with that?"

"What is the deal with that?", Asa whispered.

"I don't know ~susu," Starry said. Yoko was still frozen in shock.

Seira sighed. "She thinks they're stealing people away from her. I guess they kind of are, but Mia-chan wanted to leave anyway and Kondou-san wasn't really our friend and Yukari-chan was always closer to Nakayama-san. I don't get this at all, but I want to have friends, right?"

Takashi scratched his head. "Hey, I could tell you stuff like that anyway. My sister's weird."

Yoko squeezed her eyes shut._ Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it!_

"But that's kinda unfair, you know?" He shrugged. "I mean, I hide her stuff, and I pick on her at home, but if she doesn't wanna say stuff that's her problem. Besides, it's not even you wanting to know, right, Mitsuishi-san?"

Asa looked up at Yoko. She'd opened her eyes again. Meanwhile, Seira blinked with the same look of shock, only considerably more red-faced.

"Nakayama-kun..."

He shrugged. "I don't know how to do this girl stuff. Just make something up she can't prove. Everyone wins. Right?"

Yoko slowly began to let out a sigh of relief. Asa stood up and smiled at her, meaning to ask later what that had all been about.

Seira's expression returned to normal. "I'll try it. Something weird, right? Like..." She giggled. "That stuff earlier this afternoon! No one could prove anything like that!"

Takashi blinked. "You're gonna say my sister is Pretty Cure?"

Seira shrugged as they turned down the alley. "If it works, right?"

Yoko froze up again.

So did Asa.

Starry looked up at the both of them. "...We might be in trouble ~susu."


	12. The Vicious Whisper, Millusion!

One more Moon Piece for Pretty Cure. Now they had number thirteen, from the clock tower, number five, from the classroom, and number two, which they had found in a pile of rocks behind the Kazahana City Flower Shoppe after Binbeat had lost it and gotten bored of looking. By all rights, they should have been celebrating, but there were still ten more to go, and the Etherium had already claimed one of those. More importantly, there was the other issue.

"Blackmail?" Ogata Mia clasped her hands together.

Kawada Asa nodded. "Mitsuishi-san said Omemi-san was helping her with some kind of love confession, and, in exchange, she had to get something bad on Yoko."

Nakayama Yoko took a deep breath and nodded. She watched the dry leaves of the fall that had just ended scatter themselves over and over around the run-down path. On a normal day, she would never dream of setting foot in Sapphire Park, even with friends. This was only the second time she had done it, and the first had been when Starry was kidnapped and she forced herself to search for Asa.

"Figures!" Kondou Hoshi punched the nearby tree and rubbed her hand. "That's how Omemi always does things."

Asa looked at her. "Huh? What do you mean by that?"

"You're new to our school," Hoshi sighed, "and we may be friends, but I gotta admit that your social skills are questionable. Listen. Omemi Emiru has a talent. She can find out anything about anyone, and if she can't, she can talk someone else into doing it for her."

Okamoto Yukari nodded, taking off her glasses. "That's where her power comes from. If she thinks you're ruining her life, she uses her brain to turn the tables. She can't control people, and she knows she can't win if you challenge her, but she'll try and make you think the best thing to do is not challenge her at all."

"Can't we just get revenge or whatever you do?", Asa said.

Mia shook her head. "She's a good person. I think... she's just scared."

Yoko looked down and muttered something.

"Huh?" Asa looked at her. "Yoko, what was that?"

Yoko looked down at the transformation phone clipped to Asa's bag. She knew Starry was hiding inside it. She narrowed her eyebrows and turned her head up to face the other girls, beginning to fall back on the armour of the Ice Queen Nakayama glare.

"I know how she feels."

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 12: The World is Changing! The Vicious Whisper, Millusion!

"Pretty Cure?"

Seira clasped her hands. "I know you think they're not real, but we saw - I mean, I saw them. At the library, and at the magic show, too. Nobody wants to admit it, but..."

Emiru brushed her short, green hair in the Kazahana City Community Centre washroom mirror. Her eyebrow raised a little. "Alice, you're not your usual self at all."

Seira stiffened. "I'm not?"

"Just look at your reflection. You're all frozen and shaking and acting scared." Emiru adjusted her glasses and put her brush back in her school bag. She turned to Seira at the next sink over. "I know. You're embarrassed, aren't you?"

Seira turned a deep shade of red. Emiru's glasses shone in the reflected light.

"There's my answer," Emiru said. "Don't worry, it's not bad! I mean, you do like Nakayama-kun, don't you?"

Seira took a deep breath and concentrated on acting like her normal self. "We're getting off topic, Emiru-chan. I'm holding up my end of the deal. Pretty Cure is real. I don't know if they're delusional cosplayers or what, but they're real, and Nakayama Yoko is one of them." This is such an obvious lie. She resisted shutting her eyes, but still shook visibly. Am I really protecting your sister, Nakayama-kun?

Emiru picked up her bags. "Thank you, Alice."

"Don't call me Alice."

"What?"

Seira took another sharp breath. "Um, I mean, my name isn't Alice. It was fun at first, but now I don't really like it anymore. Can't you all call me Seira like you did before I went on the foreign exchange?"

"Oh, all right." Emiru gave a sparkling smile. "Seira it is, then. It's no trouble, since you told me what I needed to know." She walked to the door, nudged it open with her elbow, and stepped out. The door swung shut behind her, and she walked out of the community centre and looked out at the expanse of frost-covered dormant trees.

"Liar," she said as soon as she knew Seira couldn't hear.

"Oh, really?", said a voice next to her.

Emiru whipped around to the side. The young woman beside her, at least ten years older than Emiru herself, tilted her head to the side with a knowing smile. She wore a crisp white dress shirt with dress pants and gloves to match, a deep red vest the same colour as her hair, and a white eye mask with red rhinestones on either side.

"I thought she was telling the truth, myself."

A few blocks between the Awaya Shrine and the Seiki Open Mall, in a far nicer apartment than Asa's, a blue-haired man sighed and sat down on a soft black couch. Beside him was a woman around his age with a pearlescent heart necklace and cherry red hair: the one who had once been called 'Dawn'.

"Have you seen them recently?", he asked. "Have they gotten any more of the Moon Pieces?"

She shook her head and laughed. "Do you think I have nothing better than to stalk a couple of schoolgirls? The past few times I've seen them, I either just happened to be in the neighbourhood or something looked wrong."

"Wishful thinking, I guess." He ran a hand through his hair. "I knew it couldn't be over, but seeing the Etherium actually come back to this world..."

She put her hand on his and looked out the window, then at something she was overturning in her other hand. Black and shining, it was unmistakably a Moon Piece.

"I hope they can handle it," she said. "I can't bluff my way through this forever."

The phone rang.

"So you are real."

Kainatrol smirked. "I see you've heard of me. I was getting worried, what with everybody in this town denying our existence. I am Kainatrol, the Feared Tamer of the Etherium."

Emiru flipped her short, green hair back. "Unless you're five or your name is Kawada Asa, you don't believe in magic. At all. That kind of thing is to be expected, you know."

"Yet you're talking to me."

"Do I have a choice?"

"What do you take me for?" Kainatrol put her hands on her hips. "If I wanted to brainwash you, I'd have already done it. I trust you enough to start up a conversation the fair and balanced way."

Emiru adjusted her eyeglasses, trying to hide her shivering as an effect of the cold. "I'm flattered, miss! Not that you know me."

"Oh, really?" Kainatrol put a hand to the side of her own eye mask. "I'm an animal tamer. I can tell just by looking at you how you feel. They're taking everything from you, aren't they? It isn't fair."

Emiru nearly dropped her glasses on the ground. "What?"

Kainatrol gave a brisk sigh. "It sounds too familiar for my tastes. Listen, I could use a little help."

Yoko flopped down onto her bed and opened up her transformation phone. Asa had transferred Starry over to it before they parted, after their other friends (a group of friends - that was strange) had gone home. He popped out of it and walked carefully up to her pillow.

"Are you okay ~susu?"

"Yeah." Yoko closed her eyes and sighed. "I don't know what to do, that's all. This didn't happen back when I didn't talk to anyone who wasn't Yukari and just scared everybody else."

Starry frowned. "Isn't it more fun to have friends than not ~susu?"

Yoko nodded. "You're right."

The little orange creature sat on top of the pillow. "Why do the other people in your class do mean things like make fun of Asa and lie about you ~susu?"

Yoko opened her eyes and patted him on the head. "People do that. Usually because they're scared of something. If someone tried to change a situation someone else was happy with, that person would get mad and try to stop it, right?"

Starry scratched his head. Yoko sighed.

"Don't worry about it. This is nothing. I was always afraid this was going to happen. ...Not about Pretty Cure, of course. About the car."

She lay there and didn't say anything. After a while, Starry patted her on the head in turn. Yoko laughed and sighed.

"Then she just walked off."

Tachimany shrugged, five female bodies in perfect unison. They stood in the core room of the Etherium, as its agents so often did. Mekuramast, not far from them, shook his head.

"Kainatrol's up to something again. I'm sure she thinks whatever it is will help her do her job."

One of Tachimany raised her eyebrow. "We thought she'd just been offended. She scowled at us when we mentioned that little girl from way back when in the Land of Tracks. Binbeat's sister, right?"

"That certainly sounds like Kainatrol." Mekuramast crossed his arms and looked to the side. "I don't know what she's off doing, but you shouldn't worry about it."

Tachimany shifted into two businessmen again and started to trade off lines.

"All right-"

"-if you say so."

"You know Kainatrol best, after all-"

"-because you're from the same world."

"We don't even like each other," Mekuramast said.

"What does that matter to-"

"-how well you know someone?"

"I suppose you're right." Mekuramast walked off into a blank space in the wall that wasn't there before. The barely-thereness of the Etherium extended to matter as well as time and space. It truly was the white void. Once he was alone, he shook his head and sighed.

"Kore... Thera..."

When the five girls met up in the town square the next morning, it was clear that none of them actually wanted to go to school. Asa suggested skipping, but Yoko quickly deemed this unacceptable, and since she was the one most strongly affected by the situation (and, as Yukari pointed out, it was impossible to skip school in a small town and not get caught), they resigned themselves to walking down the path to Clair Academy.

"Are you sure you'll be fine?" Yukari looked at Yoko and frowned.

Yoko nodded, trying to remain expressionless. "I know she must be desperate, but it could be worse."

"You're still Ice Queen Nakayama, all right," Yukari said. "If you're not worried, we won't be either, but we'll stick around. We're friends, aren't we?"

Asa gave the thumbs up. "Yeah! We're gonna take Omemi-san and her friends on like a real team!"

Hoshi facepalmed. "Asa, you're hopeless."

"Am not!"

Mia fidgeted. "What do you think she's saying about you? I mean... if we know, we can say it isn't true... I think."

"It doesn't matter what she's saying!", Asa cut in. "If Yoko doesn't want to say, she doesn't, right?"

Hoshi blinked a few times. "Wait, wait, hold it. Asa... using common sense... The world's gonna end, isn't it?"

"Hey!"

Yoko shook her head and smiled a little. "I do have something to tell you, all of you, but..."

"Morning, girls."

The five of them stopped and looked forward. Emiru was alone, leaning on one of the trees lining the path. She adjusted her glasses so the sun glinted off them and walked towards the group. Mia gulped and stepped backwards. Asa jumped to a battle-ready stance.

"What do you want?" Asa glared at the green-haired girl.

"Oh, stop it." Emiru twirled a piece of her hair. "I'm not going to bite you. I just need to talk and we can get all this sorted out. Nakayama, Kawada, can I see you two for a moment?"

"The two of us?" Asa's eyes widened.

"Did I stutter? Come on, girls, it'll only take a moment."

Yoko glared, but stepped forward, and Asa followed. "Fine."

Emiru led them off into the bushes. Hoshi glared after and Mia shrunk back, but Yukari grabbed both their hands.

"Okamoto-san?"

Yukari frowned. "I say we follow them."

Once the three were out of sight, Emiru turned to face them. "So..."

Yoko gave a death glare. "What's this about?"

"Calm down, Ice Queen Nakayama," Emiru said. "I just wanted to sort a few things out with you two. Nothing big, just about what's been going on lately-"

Asa jabbed a finger in Emiru's face. "You bribed Mitsuishi Seira to get blackmail on Yoko so you could spread rumours because you don't like how we became friends and stole Okamoto-san and Ogata-san!"

Yoko grabbed her wrist. "Asa!"

"It's true!" She gestured to Emiru. "Right? It's true?"

"You're so weird."

"Huh?" Asa blinked.

Emiru glared right back at the two of them. "You're so blunt about these things! How do you even have any friends? Why did the two of you suddenly become friends, and then start stealing everyone away from me? If I don't have the Lily Class, then I don't have anybody!"

Yoko stepped forward. "Omemi-san, you're being irrational."

"I am not!" She took a deep breath. "What changed everything? Is it Pretty Cure?"

"That was just to protect Yoko from-" Yoko clamped a hand over Asa's mouth before she could finish.

"You are Pretty Cure," Emiru said. "Don't try to hide it. Even if Alice was trying to save you from whatever more boring dirt she could have gotten, you're Pretty Cure. I heard it from a very reliable source."

Yoko slowly removed her hand from Asa's mouth, but kept the other one firmly holding onto her wrist. "Another source?"

Emiru nodded. "Want to see for yourself?" Before they could say anything, she snapped her fingers and the three of them disappeared.

Three pairs of eyes watched from the bushes behind.

There was nothing around them. Nothing but white for as far as they could see. Slowly, the nothing shaped itself into ornately-carved walls, but just enough to still be called 'blank', a 'void'. Yoko slowly let go of Asa, and they looked around, not believing what they were seeing.

"Welcome to the Etherium, ladies," came a voice from behind. Asa and Yoko spun around to see Kainatrol bending her riding crop in her hands. "There's less of a chance of interruption here."

"Kainatrol!" Asa pointed at her, her other hand on her phone. "You brainwashed Omemi-san!"

"Are you that much of an idiot?" Kainatrol hit her open palm with the riding crop. "Of course I'm not controlling her. You should remember what happened the last time we fought."

"When she brainwashed Yukari and the crowd at the show..." Yoko frowned. "Kainatrol's powers only work when she's looking at her victim. Omemi-san was at the school, and Kainatrol was here in the Etherium."

Kainatrol marched up to her. "Don't talk about me as if I'm not here."

Yoko glared right back. "Someone who wants to erase the world from existence doesn't deserve that kind of respect."

"Why, you little -"

Emiru cleared her throat. "We're here for something else."

"Oh, yes." Kainatrol frowned and backed away. Emiru pushed her way between Asa and Yoko and walked past them to stand in front of Kainatrol. She took a sharp breath, removed her glasses, and stared through them for a while. The white light shone off them from all directions, and they started to turn into light and change. When the shine subsided, Emiru was instead holding a white Etherium eye mask with dark blue-green stone accents.

Asa and Yoko stared with open mouths.

"You'll let me do it, right?" Emiru looked up.

Kainatrol gave a rare but chilling smile. "Of course. It's only fair if you do. Now, finish changing and say the lines I taught you, and it'll all be official."

Yoko looked at Asa. "You know these things. Please tell me this isn't what I think it is."

Asa gulped. "I think it's exactly what you think it is."

Emiru's school uniform shimmered just like her glasses did. When the light faded, though, it looked structurally the same. The Clair Academy crest was replaced by a deep blue-green jewel-shaped marking, and the red bow and loafers turned a similar colour, but the rest was pure white.

"All right..." She took a sharp breath. "The power of this life shines brightly as the world from which it came fades away."

"Omemi-san!" Both Asa and Yoko cried out at the same time.

Emiru ignored them and put on her eye mask. It shone in the light from everywhere. "I am the Vicious Whisper of the Etherium... Millusion. I will leave nothing behind!"


	13. The Lonely Land!

Nakayama Yoko had decided to tell her friends the truth that she'd been hiding about herself, but she didn't get the chance to when Omemi Emiru called her and Asa aside before class. Emiru revealed that she knew for sure that the two were Pretty Cure, and that she had met with Kainatrol and joined the Etherium to get revenge on them for stealing her friends. Now, Asa and Yoko stood helplessly in the Etherium as Emiru transformed into a teal-and-white version of her school uniform, her glasses morphing into a familiar eye mask.

"This can't be happening." Yoko shivered. "What are we supposed to do?"

Asa slashed her Moon Card in her phone. "Come on, transform!"

Yoko took a deep breath and swiped her own Moon Card. The two girls linked hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

To them, it felt like they were covered in light, spinning in a multicoloured background as their uniforms appeared upon them. To everybody else, a flash of light occurred - although this was a world of nothing but white already - and the girls appeared, changed, to pose and do their speech.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "Yes, we've established that you're Pretty Cure. Now, our trial service member has far more reason and right to get rid of you than I do, so I'll just leave it to her. Millusion?"

Millusion drew out a silver-plated pendulum from what looked like nowhere. The face of the pendulum had an ornate design carved into it and filled in with dark teal; the same design appeared on the walls of the room where they stood. She began to glow in the same colour and swung it.

"This is my ability, Trance Lock." As she gave this explanation, an orb of dark teal light immediately surrounded her, Night and Sunday and completely blocked them off. Kainatrol smirked, standing on the outside.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon

Episode 13: The Lonely Land! Face Yourselves, Pretty Cure!

Night held up her arms to block and flinched, expecting an attack. When none came, she slowly lowered her arms and opened her eyes to look forward. The nothingness was gone - not gone, how could _nothing_ be _gone_, but... filled? Instead, she was standing in an empty classroom.

Starry popped his little head out of the phone. "What's going on ~susu?"

"I don't know." She scanned the room and stopped when she saw the teacher's desk. A familiar paperweight sat upon it: a purple carving of a cat. Night frowned and slid the classroom door open, craning her neck up to see the sign hanging over it.

"Second Year, Girls' Division... Lily Class."

"Yup! Just like normal," came a voice behind her. Night jumped and spun around to see the previously empty classroom. In front of her stood a smiling, untransformed Asa.

"What?"

"Night? Night!" Sunday ran around the schoolgrounds, or what looked like the schoolgrounds, except that all the students were gone. She turned a corner into the courtyard where everyone ate their lunch. Nobody. She stopped and took a deep breath.

"Night!"

"Looking for someone?"

Sunday stumbled back and looked up into a tree. Yoko, in her school uniform, sat on a branch with her legs crossed and waved.

The blue-green orb was still up, standing impenetrably around Millusion and the Cures. Kainatrol stood outside of it, unchanging, as the wall behind her shifted out of being.

"You look satisfied." Mekuramast walked up behind her. "What's the occasion?"

She turned around and scowled. "What are you here for?"

"Like the rest of us, I was wondering what you were doing." He shrugged. "Talent scouting? That's not your department."

"Can I help it if I see the perfect opportunity?", she said. "Maybe Tachimany just aren't doing their job properly and I need to step in."

"Whatever you say, animal tamer. What's her story?"

"I'm letting her deal with Pretty Cure." Kainatrol's eye mask shone, obscuring her eyes. "You can ask her the rest later. Just get out of my face. You're ruining the moment."

Mekuramast sighed. "I know when I'm not wanted. I'll be off." He tapped the top of his hat with his wand and made himself disappear.

Kainatrol glared into the space where he was. "I hope you will."

"Asa?"

"Of course it's me!" The Asa standing in front of her smiled.

"What's going on?" Night rubbed her head. "This isn't making any sense at all."

"Everything's back to normal. You must have hit your head if you don't remember."

Night wasn't looking at Asa. Out the window, she saw a flash of blue fabric flap by in the wind for a second. Asa stepped in front of her, blocking her view.

"Come on, everything's safe now. We can go back to normal. Class hasn't even started yet, let's go!"

Starry's little head gestured to the screen of the phone he was inside. "Yoko! Yoko, this isn't Asa at all ~susu! The tracker says she's somewhere else ~susu!"

Asa scowled and grabbed for the phone. Night's hands went to guard it and she stepped back.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?" Asa crossed her arms. "I'm just going to give him a talking-to about making up lies."

Night stared for a second and frowned. Asa tilted her head and pouted.

"What, you don't believe me? Aren't we friends?"

Night backed away. "This can't be real. That's impossible."

Mekuramast jumped up onto the roof from the windowsill where he'd hung the blue scarf. On the ground and inside the school building, the world looked quite normal aside from its lack of students and faculty, but up there, he could spot a few inconsistencies. One of the benches was only half-made, the edges tapering off into a telltale dark teal. Pieces of the sky above the school, too, were missing, replaced by a vision of the orb they were trapped in.

Well, the new girl had never used her powers before. He couldn't fault her the small mistakes.

He wasn't even sure why he was here. On a regular day, he probably would have teleported out normally to go search for the Moon Pieces, not used his powers to disappear and then enter Millusion's world. It wasn't as if he owed Pretty Cure any favours. He shut his eyes.

_A series of red and white circus tents were set up, and a crowd of people in old-fashioned clothes was filing through the front door. The performers were standing backstage, waiting in a line as an assistant checked them over. At the front was Mekuramast, minus his eye mask and in a sepia brown version of his blue and white suit. He snuck a look out of the curtain at the gathering audience._

_"It looks like a full house tonight," he whispered. He stood back up and turned to face the fellow performers in the line._

_"That should cheer Thera up from whatever she's been thinking about lately," said the young woman standing beside him. She wore a blue dress to match his suit instead of a dress shirt, red vest and pants, her hair was longer, and she, too, was missing the eye mask, but those were superficial differences. The deep red, board-straight hair, yellow eyes... she looked exactly like Kainatrol._

_The announcer cut in. "Thank you all very much for attending. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Chronos Travelling Show!" The two of them wheeled a black cart into the centre of the round stage, and the spotlight fell onto them as the announcer continued. "For our first act, please welcome Kairos, the Master Magician, and his assistant, Kore!"_

Mekuramast tightened his grip on his wand. He walked over to the corner of the building and looked down to see the false Yoko climb carefully out of the tree and advance on Cure Sunday.

"Tch." He drew a playing card out of his sleeve and tossed it down.

_You have only yourself to blame for this, Kainatrol._

Sunday looked up. Mekuramast's cape caught her eye for a split second before it disappeared. "What?"

"Come on, Asa." The Yoko standing in front of her grabbed her wrist and yanked her to attention. "We've got some time to kill before class, so just detransform before someone shows up and sees you."

Sunday looked past her at what had been thrown from the roof. A playing card had embedded itself in the lawn. She yanked her wrist out of the strange Yoko's grip and frowned.

"Hold on."

Yoko's smile shifted into an imitation of the Ice Queen Nakayama glare. "What?"

Sunday didn't flinch. "This happened on DaiFighter once. How do I know you're really Yoko?"

"That's easy." Yoko smiled, a little too self-assured. "Ask me something you wouldn't have told anyone else."

Sunday put her finger to her lip for a while, then hit her open palm with her fist. "I've got it! Yoko, you know I just transferred here a few months ago, right? Then, how did Hoshi and I become friends?"

Yoko's eyes seemed to change colour a bit, towards a dark blue-green. "Kondou-san? She lives in the next town over and only comes here for school. You used to commute there for your martial arts classes when you were little, and that's when you two became friends. You only stopped because your dad ran out of town and your mom couldn't afford to send you anymore." She smiled, sure of her answer.

"She really does know everything, just like Hoshi told me," Sunday said. "Omemi-san does, that is."

The teal-eyed Yoko froze. "What?"

Sunday looked her in the eyes. "I never told Yoko that."

The Yoko-copy glared. Not in the Ice Queen's regular fashion, nor any cheap imitation; this had far too much anger to hold. Her body was covered in a dark teal glow, and the black diamond of a Hidoinaa appeared on her forehead.

"That's awful," she said.

Sunday startled, but quickly darted past her, ducking to yank the card out of the dirt as she ran.

"What do you mean it can't be real?" The Asa-copy in the classroom pouted and stomped her foot. "If it's not real, then what is it?"

"How should I know?" Night gave a proper cold glare. "I do know that nothing's quite adding up. A class with no people, a friend who isn't acting right..."

"That's normal," the Asa said, as her eyes gained a dark teal glow themselves.

"What!" Night stumbled back. Starry shut himself up in the phone.

The Asa-copy advanced on her. "Normal these days, anyway, now that the whole world's turned upside down." Her voice began to change from Asa's to Emiru's, and her whole body glowed as the black diamond mark appeared.

Night backed up against the wall. "Omemi-san!"

The Asa-Emiru-Hidoinaa-thing's face twisted. "Everyone's changing and acting differently. Nobody cares what they're risking. It's just like I told you before! No one's afraid of what will happen if they show what they've been hiding all this time!"

"You'd rather people were afraid?", Night said.

The other snarled. "At least then I had _friends!" _She pinned Night to the wall with one arm and drew back her hand.

Before she could strike, she was hit with an exploding card thrown from the classroom and knocked to the side.

Night stood up and waved the tiny smoke cloud out of the way. The real Sunday, arm out after she tossed the card, straightened up and jumped off of the simulacrum of Yoko's desk and onto the floor.

"Sunday!" Night ran over to her. "How did you -"

Sunday pointed out the window at the blue scarf fluttering at the side. "I got a hint about where you were. These copies of us are some kind of Hidoinaa, but Omemi-san is controlling what they do, and this whole world isn't real, and-"

Night coughed. "I... figured all that out."

"Oh, yeah, don't leave anything for me," Sunday grumbled.

"Excuse me!"

Night and Sunday turned to the door. The fake Asa pulled herself to her feet.

"We're not letting you out of here." They turned around again to see the fake Yoko climb through the classroom window.

Night and Sunday looked at each other. Sunday took a step towards the door and Night stood back to back with her, facing the window.

"It was this way in the _DaiFighter_ episode, too," Sunday grinned.

"Save it for later," Night said. "Just try not to break anything."

"It's an illusion world! Nothing here is real!" Sunday rushed forward and struck out her palm. The fake Asa couldn't block fast enough and went flying into the wall.

"It still looks like the school!" Night ran forward and blocked a punch from her double before striking back with a high kick that nearly sent her out the window.

Back in the real classroom, Ami-sensei blinked and looked at the three girls standing at their seats. "Kawada-san, Nakayama-san... and Omemi-san will be late?"

"That's what we said." Kondou Hoshi crossed her arms and nodded. "They had something really important to do."

"Please believe us," Ogata Mia said, wringing her hands.

"We totally swear they're not skipping." Okamoto Yukari bowed and held her hand over her heart.

The three of them looked at each other, the same thing on all of their minds.

The copies were going down without very much effort on the Cures' part. They could get a few punches in, but the real things hit more often and hit much harder. The fake Asa picked up a desk and swung it at Sunday, but she ducked and kicked upwards, sending her flying into the wall and the desk clattering onto the floor.

"I said don't damage anything!" Night dodged a strike from her double and brought her hand down onto her neck, sending her crashing into the ground.

"Yell at her, not me!" Sunday called back. The doubles pulled themselves back up. Sunday and Night looked at each other.

"Let's go."

On opposite sides of the room, they punched in complete unison. The impostors collapsed again and began to fade away into black blobs.

"Hidoi..."

"...naa." They lost their forms and burned completely away.

Sunday pumped her fist in the air. "All right! That was awesome!"

Night sighed. "Aren't you even a little disturbed that you just vaporized yourself?"

"She was trying to kill you!" Sunday waved her arms.

Night looked away. "Let's just go."

"Go where?"

Starry popped out of Night's phone and onto one of the desks. "We should find a way out ~susu."

"What we should do," Night said without looking at them, "is find Omemi-san."

The school proved empty. All that was left now was the roof, before they tested the borders of the illusion world. Sunday kicked open the door and looked around before walking outside.

"Did you really have to do that?", Night said as she followed along with Starry in her arms.

Sunday blushed. "Of course! This is enemy territory. You need to think like a soldier."

"Are you sure you're not just thinking like... never mind." Night looked up at the blue-green patches in the sky and around at the half-formed benches. "We must be close to the edge."

"Why?", came a third voice.

Sunday and Night spun around and looked into the previously empty doorway. Millusion, in her crisp white version of the Clair Academy uniform and with her pendulum clutched in her hand, appeared and walked out of it, encroaching upon the two.

"Starry, get in the phone," Night said, He quickly obliged.

Sunday stepped in front of her partner. "Omemi-san! Don't try to stop us!"

"Why not?" Millusion's glare could have burned holes into them. "You ruined everything. I just want my life to go back to normal. Is that so hard for you to understand?"

"Wait, what?" Sunday blinked. "If you don't want to erase the world, why are you even with the Etherium? You know that's what they're here for, right?"

"Why should I believe you?," Millusion said. "In case you forgot, Kawada, you're crazy."

Night stepped forward. "It's true."

"I don't care even if it is." Millusion took a deep breath. "If, on some off-chance, you're not deluded, I'll just turn on them. I don't want the world to be destroyed. The only reason I took Kainatrol up on her offer was because she told me I could be rid of you."

"Could you at least explain why you-"

Night held up her hand to cut Sunday off. She stared at Millusion for a moment. "...I know how you feel."

"You're just as crazy as she is, Nakayama!", Millusion snapped. "You couldn't possibly understand!"

"I do!"

There was a silence for a few seconds. Night continued.

"You were saying through your copies that you wanted everyone to go back to being afraid of being themselves. Because it was normal and better for you that way."

"She was?" Sunday blinked.

"Let me finish." Night kept her eyes on Millusion. "You're just as afraid as everyone else, aren't you?"

Millusion forced a laugh. "What?"

"It's true." Night didn't move. "You're afraid that people won't like the real you. Otherwise, would you honestly think that you couldn't be friends with people you couldn't deceive or scare?"

The girl in front of them didn't say anything for a while. She slowly took off her eye mask and looked into it. Sunday started forward, but Night grabbed her arm and yanked her back into place. The two of them just watched Millusion before she spoke.

"Alice... no, Seira doesn't want to be treated like a foreigner anymore. Ogata's terrified of us - the Etherium - attacking again. Misaki Izumi and Izumi Misaki act like they have one brain between them, but they're actually sick of being treated like the same person. Fujisawa Ayumu's been skipping cram school. She goes into the city every weekend, but she actually spends the time at the karaoke bar. Suzu lives her life by the horoscope in the paper because she thinks it'll get some guy interested in her." She looked up at Sunday, raising her eye mask in front of her so she could see clearly. "It's just like you said. I've got something on everyone. I need to."

"For blackmail?", Sunday asked.

"For safety." Millusion shook her head. "I guess it's the same thing. If someone leaves me, they'll know to regret it. But if everyone leaves me at once, then... I can't deal with it, okay!"

Night inhaled. "...Do you still like your friends?"

Millusion blinked. "What?"

"I'm asking if you still like your friends, even after everything you've dug up on them. Or do you just think of them as something to use to keep you afloat?"

Millusion started to speak, but then stopped. She thought of every day, sitting and talking at the side of the Lily Class' room, how her group got smaller and smaller. Going to the Open Mall, the park, even that magic show, though it had been set up to brainwash the crowd to find Moon Pieces.

Night gave a small smile. "...I don't think you have anything to worry about."

"What are you..."

Sunday's eyes widened in understanding, and she gave the thumbs up. "Yeah, you know what? She's right."

"What are you saying?" Millusion's voice wavered.

"We're saying that, if everyone else is dropping their guard, you don't have to keep yours up anymore." Yoko coughed. "I think."

"Wait, you mean..."

"We'd even be your friends, if you want." Sunday shrugged. "Rule to remember: if one of the people who tried to kill you is the same age as you, and especially if they're in your class, they can be your best friends."

Millusion blinked twice. "But I just called you crazy. I've been saying things about you all term long."

"Ogata-san did it," Sunday replied. "She's our friend."

The green-haired girl stared at the mask in her hand. Her grip on it loosened for a second, and she grabbed it tightly again before it dropped onto the cement roof. The illusion world around them began to fade, showing its true form, the inside of a small dark teal orb of light.

"...I'll take you back." She looked forward at them. "As long as you'll make sure she doesn't come after me for leaving. Do we have a deal?"

"We're Pretty Cure!" Sunday posed dramatically. "We'll protect anyone who needs it!"

"Then could you stop complaining when I tell you to go after stalkers and panty thieves?" Night facepalmed.

Millusion's mask shifted into her glasses again. A light shimmered on her clothes, which changed back to the regular blue jacket and goldenrod skirt. Emiru put her glasses on again and slipped her pendulum back into her school bag, which she hadn't been holding before.

"Let's go." The light orb broke apart, and Emiru snapped her fingers to teleport the three girls back to the courtyard.

Mekuramast teleported back into the core room and looked around. Kainatrol was nowhere to be found. He shook his head and walked off through a gap of white empty space.

Asa and Yoko detransformed almost as soon as Emiru did. Without a word, they walked as quickly as they could to their classroom, hoping they weren't too late. Emiru walked a few paces ahead of them and stepped into the classroom, giving the best explanation she could fabricate to the history teacher; they'd apparently taken so long that Ami-sensei's homeroom class was over. Asa and Yoko stood at the doorway and looked at each other.

"Hey, Yoko," Asa said.

"Hm?"

"You know how you said you had something to tell us?"

Yoko slowly nodded.

"I have stuff to tell you, too. Okay?"

She paused... and then nodded. "All right. At lunch today."

They walked in, Asa's mind on young versions of Hoshi and herself, Yoko's on the Vita standing in the garage.

Asa: Whoo! Now it's time for...

Everyone: Asa and Yoko's Comment Corner! (Starry: ~susu!)

Hoshi: Hey, we were barely in this episode! No fair!

Yukari: Especially since we've just found out that you two were Pretty Cure.

Tachimany: Out of all the characters, aren't we in the most need of screentime?

Yoko: There wasn't really room for many more people in this episode...

Mekuramast: It fit a lot of plot in, regardless, as well as the first real flashback to our original worlds.

Mia: This episode actually corresponds to episodes 19 and 20 on the original outline!

Starry: Wow, we're so far along ~susu!

Asa: Everyone, do your best, okay?

Yoko: See you all next time.


	14. Ami sensei's Sick?

_I don't know why they didn't send somebody else to help Pretty Cure instead of me ~susu._

What had been a beautiful temple was close to ruins in the space of an hour. It had started with the old woman. She foresaw the path with her crystal ball and blew open the doors with a gust of energy. The little boy she took with her summoned an organ and began to play, and tiny explosives appeared and went off, bringing down pillars and blowing holes in the walls. There had been a group of guards posted in the next room, but they never got the chance - to hear them tell it later, their minds were taken over by a woman with a red vest and yellow eyes. There was one final layer before the Moon Dial, and the last party member lifted a black crystal out of his top hat and used it to create a monster that broke in and stole it.

Starry had heard the noise and wondered what was going on. By the time that he ran over to the temple, five white-haired teenage girls were posted outside, blocking the path of a group of small citizens.

_Was it because of my parents, or just because I was there ~susu?_

He jumped a little and searched the crowd behind the people in white. They had to be there. Finally, he saw them: two fluffy creatures a little bigger than he was, one black with purple moon-shaped markings, one white with orange sun-shaped markings like his.

"Mama! Papa!" The little orange creature ran over to them. The girls twirled around in unison and pointed wooden swords at him. He flailed and stepped back.

"Don't get in the way," the five people said in complete unison.

"W-w..." Starry took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly shut. "What are you doing at the Temple of the Dial ~susu? Who are you ~susu?"

"They're the Etherium ~muu!" The black creature pointed at them. "The people Pretty Cure fought twenty-five years ago ~muu!"

The white one nodded. "They're back for the Moon Dial ~sasa!"

"You're acting like we're _stealing_ something." The girls closed their eyes and shifted into the form of twelve male knights in shiny white armour. "The Moon Dial belonged to us in the first place."

"That's right." The other four agents walked out of the front door, carrying the small black and white Moon Dial with them. The red-haired woman gave an amused look at the little creatures and continued speaking. "Your legendary warriors stole it from us, and we're just taking it back. Tachimany, you can stand down. These little things won't hurt us."

Tachimany stood to attention and shifted into the form of one boy. "If you're sure about that, Kainatrol."

"You shouldn't be." A very small, very old humanoid hobbled up towards the gathering, carrying a staff around her own size.

_I can't even remember what exactly happened ~susu._

"Elder!" All three little creatures ran over to her.

"Sunbi." She smiled at the white creature.

He nodded. "I'm ready ~sasa!"

The Elder turned to the black creature. "Moonla, what of you?"

She nodded as well. "We've been through much worse ~muu."

Starry looked up at them. "What's going on ~susu?"

"Starry." The Elder frowned. "You're the only one we can spare to do this. Don't ask any questions yet. Just enter one of the devices when I say so, go through the portal, and try to remember where they land."

"Which devices ~susu? Where what land?"

The little boy from the Etherium stomped his feet. "This is boring! When do we get to go back?"

"Patience, Binbeat," said the old woman next to him, looking from under her head covering. "We'll be back soon enough."

The Elder raised her staff. "Now, lend me the power of your hearts!"

_All I remember..._

Starry's parents standing at the Elder's sides.

Light rising up from each of them.

Blue fire shooting from the Elder's staff.

Hitting the Moon Dial.

The base cracking. Thirteen pieces flying out.

A portal. To where? The world had so many names. Asa said it was Earth when he asked. Back home, they called it the Land of Legends.

Two devices. Phones. Cards. Pouches. Starry did what he was told.

The portal.

The clock striking midnight and ringing when it wasn't supposed to.

_It's a little foggy, but I know I ended up here ~susu._

Present day. Starry woke up and popped out of Asa's transformation phone. He climbed up onto her bed and poked her face a few times.

"Nn... it's cold..." Asa shivered under her thin, well-worn blanket.

"Asa..." Starry sighed. "Asa, are the three of us a good team ~susu?"

"Hmm?" She rubbed her eyes and blinked. "Of course. What happened?"

"We don't have many Moon Pieces ~susu..."

Asa patted his head. "Don't worry. We'll get more, I know it. This is only beginning, after all." She closed her eyes. "I'll wake up later..."

Starry sighed and flopped down on the hard bed. Asa was right. It was cold in there.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 14: Ami-sensei's Sick? A Class Visit!

It had been a quiet week and a half. It was still winter, and still a little cold, although it was still above freezing. Seira was saying more and more that it wasn't all that cold, or so Yoko said - she'd apparently been seeing Takashi more often lately, and even Yoko didn't have enough restraint not to listen to their conversations some of the time. She'd never admit it. This was all Asa's bad influence anyway.

Asa couldn't be blamed for everything, though, Yoko thought. It hadn't even been two weeks since the problems in the Lily Class came to a head and Omemi Emiru, one of their classmates, had inexplicably joined the Etherium. She had used her new powers to trap Asa and Yoko in an illusory world where she was supposed to kill them, but decided to work out her frustrations first by attacking them with Hidoinaa copies of each other that she'd enhanced with her powers. Just when the fake Asa had Yoko cornered, the real Asa had climbed through the window and freed Yoko by tossing an exploding card.

Where had she even gotten an exploding card?

Either way, ever since then, life at school had been different. Emiru hadn't spoken to them since they talked her into stopping what she was doing, but she hadn't exposed their identities like she'd said she would, either. Her friends had started to worry that she might be sick. The class atmosphere overall felt a little off, but they still sat around and talked every morning before homeroom.

"So there's a big sale on clothes at that one store Izumi-chan's parents own..." Okamoto Yukari, Yoko's first friend in Kazahana City. Despite her glasses and the long black braid wrapped around her head making her look serious and neat, she had a fun and friendly side and used to be one of the more popular girls in class. Now one could say that the class was in social upheaval, but most people liked Yukari, anyway.

"Okamoto, you told us that already. Yesterday." The girl with the messy brown hair was Kondou Hoshi. She'd hated Yoko when they first met, but she seemed to just be an overprotective friend. Yoko felt like she understood Hoshi a lot more now that she was part of their makeshift group, and things were a lot better overall.

"You guys are coming with me if we get _DaiFighter Forever DX _at the town theatre, right?" Kawada Asa. Blue hair, a bright red bow, and eyes that sparkled whenever she talked about her favourite subject: live-action shows intended for children about teenage boys in spandex and helmets fighting monsters. The situation with her was the opposite of that with Hoshi; ever since they made up after a fight and their little group of friends formed around them, Yoko wasn't quite sure what Asa was to her. A friend? Probably. No, definitely. Her fellow Pretty Cure? Obviously, but not just that. Yoko's head hurt thinking about it. She just didn't get Asa most of the time.

Hoshi groaned. "Asa..."

Yukari slammed her textbook shut, startling the others. "Hey, where's Mia, anyway?"

"You mean Ogata-san?" Yoko blinked. Since when was Yukari on a first-name basis with the other girls? Now that she thought about it, probably since that morning. Yukari was just like that. "I haven't seen her."

At that point, a girl with fluffy red hair and a pink bow slid the door open and ran over to the group. She stopped, panting, and leaned on the desk. Yoko raised an eyebrow. _Ogata-san getting here just when we started talking about her? That only happens in bad comedies, doesn't it?_

"I'm not late, am I?" Mia caught her breath and looked around nervously.

"The teacher's not even here." Hoshi scratched her head. "You're usually early. What gives?"

"Oh, that..." Mia sat down and shook her head. "I was taking Ami-sensei her medicine. She caught the flu on the weekend and she's sick in bed."

"What?"

Izumi Misaki leaned over from the other gathering of girls two rows away. "Ami-sensei's sick? That doesn't mean we get Nekoi-sensei, does it?"

Misaki Izumi, sitting next to her, made a face. "It doesn't mean we get him, does it? Because he's boring."

"He's boring." Misaki nodded and mimicked Izumi's face. "And he expects us to read the handouts."

"Aren't you supposed to read the handouts?", another girl asked.

At the far side of that circle, Omemi Emiru looked intently at her book. Yoko looked at her and sighed. She'd been like that for the past week. At least she wasn't threatening to blackmail them anymore... or trying to kill them, either. The bell rang and the students all moved into their proper seats.

The Etherium was blank as usual, save for occasional glimpses of ornately carved ivory walls fading in and out. Three old women in white and gold dresses stood before the ripple in the air.

"You have permission to leave, Tachimany," said the voice from nowhere. "Find the Moon Pieces this time."

Tachimany shifted into two businessmen and nodded in unison. "Count on us." They teleported out of the area. Immediately after, Kainatrol teleported into the area they'd been standing in and knelt in front of the empty air.

"Hello, sir."

"Kainatrol." The voice echoed in her ears. "Are you here to ask for another chance after your failure with the hypnotist?"

Omemi Emiru. Kainatrol winced at the mention of that incident. She'd been so sure that the girl's bitterness against Pretty Cure was enough to make her hate her world enough to destroy it, and to be fair, the girl who became Millusion had certainly wanted to rid herself of the Cures themselves. Something had happened to change her mind, and she'd left, sparing them. What had happened, Kainatrol didn't know, but it was driving her insane. She'd thought...

"No." She shook her head, cringing for the inevitable criticism from the boss. "I have to apologize again. I understand that that wasn't my job."

The voice didn't answer for a moment. Finally, he spoke. "Enough has been said about that."

Kainatrol blinked, her head shooting up. "Boss?"

"The cause of the Etherium is to revert everything to nothing. This requires the Moon Pieces. You have been more successful than most of the agents here in obtaining them. Furthermore, although you did fail, recruiting that girl in the first place was a sign of dedication by going beyond your job. You may continue as you were."

Kainatrol nodded, still kneeling, and teleported out. The ripple faded away.

Come the lunch bell, Asa, Yoko, Hoshi, Yukari and Mia walked in a clump down the sidewalk. This was Ami-sensei's neighbourhood. Yoko had been down this way before a few times to go to meet Asa, or at least to go as close to where Asa lived as she felt comfortable going.

"Homeroom sucked today." Hoshi grumbled, crossing her arms. "The sub droned on forever. And science! He didn't know a thing about what we were learning!"

Yukari put a finger to her lip. "Do you even think he was lecturing on the right unit?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if he weren't, Okamoto." She sighed. "Ami-sensei better get better soon."

"Hey, Mia," Asa said. Yoko quirked an eyebrow. When had Asa stopped calling her 'Ogata-san'? Maybe it was contagious.

"What is it, Kawada-san?"

Asa leaned toward her with a suspicious look on her face. "How come you were taking Ami-sensei her medicine, anyway?"

Mia sweatdropped and clasped her hands together. "Ah... You see, Ami-sensei is a good friend of the family. She and my mom have been best friends since they were our age. My parents even named me after her."

"Whoa, really?" Asa gaped.

Mia turned slightly pink. "Well, they'd already named Karei-nee as a variation on my mom's name, which is Kirei. So they thought it would fit, I guess."

"Small world, huh?" Yukari stretched out her arms. She'd already changed out of her uniform into a frilly pink top and white skirt, even though it was only lunchtime. "Which house is hers, anyway?"

"That one." Mia pointed at a small house painted pale purple. A strange system of wires ran around the top of the house and down to the front door, and more went into the house. She walked up to the front step, the other girls following, and pulled gently on one of the cables. Leaning to speak into a coloured panel on the wall, she said, "It's Mia." The door slid open and she let go of the wire.

The other girls stared.

"Whoa," Hoshi said. "Did she make that?"

"Ami-sensei makes all kinds of things." Mia sweatdropped. "Come on in. She won't mind."

The inside of the house was even weirder. The group followed Mia through a maze of inventions hanging off the walls and lying on the floor. Yukari nearly stepped on a robot rolling through the hall with a bottle of pills and a glass of water. It rolled on past them, and Mia motioned for everyone to follow it into a dark, messy bedroom with the door wide open.

Ami-sensei looked like a wreck. She groaned and reached for the pills and water glass, which the robot raised up to her. Once she'd taken them, she opened her eyes wide enough to see the five girls gathered in her room.

Mia bowed. "Um, Ami-sensei, my friends wanted to see if you were feeling better yet. I hope you don't mind."

"Of course - ugh - not!" Ami-sensei tried her best to inject some of her usual fangirlish vigour into her pained voice. "It's wonderful to see my students display care and compassion for others! Augh, my head..."

Yukari and Mia looked at each other, and Yukari straightened up. "Hey, Yoko, Asa, could you guys go get Ami-sensei some food from the fridge? We'll wait here."

Asa tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "Huh? But we have our lunches right-"

"Come on." Yoko grabbed Asa's wrist and pulled her out of the room, shutting the door behind her. She dragged the blue-haired girl to the kitchen, dodging inventions all the while, and let go of her with a sigh.

"What was that for?" Asa waved her arms in the air. "They're acting weird all of a sudden, and then you did too!"

Yoko sighed. "I know that was an obvious excuse to get us out of the room, but don't question Yukari when she gets like that. She probably has a good reason."

Asa pouted. "But letting people keep secrets always means something goes terribly wrong twenty episodes later! Like Yuu's secret origins and how he became GoldFighter and why he says he's DaiFighter's eternal rival, and how it's because of his relationship with Mako-chan and that's why she's lost in time forever, and..."

"What -" Yoko facepalmed. "Asa."

"What?"

"I'm not even going to start on how you keep bringing up _DaiFighter_. We're keeping Pretty Cure secret, aren't we? What's the difference?"

"There's plenty of difference!", Asa said. "Keeping up your secret identity is... well, it's just a thing that you do."

"Asa, just stop."

The transformation phone on Asa's bag opened up, and Starry popped out of it once he saw that no one else was around. He landed on the counter and glanced around.

"Starry, what's wrong?" Night looked down at him and gasped.

"What?" Asa turned and flailed. "Wha- wha- no way!"

Starry wandered over to the end of the table, where a wiry black contraption stood. It was plated with metal, with a TV screen in the middle, tiny satellites attached to the sides, and a metal claw at the top that seemed to be the resting place for a large jewel. A jewel much like the rough black one, with only one polished side that bore the number IV, lying on top of the plans.

"No way. A Moon Piece?"

"It's not even disguised." Yoko carefully picked it up and scanned it with her phone and Scan Card. "But the phone says it's the real thing."

Starry peered at the plan sheets. "It looks like she was using it as a component for this invention ~susu... What does it say up there?" He pointed at the top of the page.

Yoko leaned over to read it. "Hm... 'Communicator to Mars'? Is she serious?"

"Why not?", Asa asked. "I'd want a communicator to Mars. Then I could talk to aliens. She lives alone, right? She probably doesn't have other people to talk to, so aliens are the next best thing."

"Are you serious?"

"Of course I am! Hey, my mom's always out at work, and it's really boring being home alone every other day. Aliens would be welcome."

Yoko rubbed her forehead and put the Moon Piece down. "We should ask Ami-sensei if we can borrow this. It's bad enough that we had to steal the paperweight."

Asa sweatdropped. "Oh, yeah, that. I forgot all about it."

"You what?"

Starry picked the Moon Piece up from the ground. It was large enough to throw off his balance, but he tottered this way and that and hopped up to place it into the machine. He landed on the television component, put the Moon Piece in top-side up, and turned on the switch before climbing back down.

Asa was still fidgeting and rubbing the back of her head. "Aha... the paperweight, right."

Yoko frowned. "Seriously, Asa, you're-" She stopped and turned to look at the machine, Asa following suit. The screen crackled on and fuzzed for a bit before blinking to an image of an empty chamber in a rainbow-painted temple with black stars on the walls and ceiling.

Asa gaped. "It actually works?"

Yoko stared. "That's not Mars."

Starry shivered in shock. "It's..."

A fluffy black creature with purple moon markings stepped into view of the camera and looked straight at it. "It's the communicator again ~muu..." She blinked. "Starry?"

Starry cautiously stepped forward. "...Mama?"

Satisfied that Asa and Yoko were gone from the room, Yukari nodded. "Sorry to burden you with this, Ami-sensei. Hey, Mia, is this really a good idea?"

Mia looked down. "I know you're sick, Ami-sensei, and I don't want to bother you, but..." She fidgeted and looked up at Yukari. "Ami-sensei has always given me good advice before."

"Really? Her?", Hoshi muttered.

Ami coughed and pulled herself up into a seated position. "What do you need?"

Yukari ran her nails against the edge of the braid wrapped around her head. "What do you do when your friends have been keeping something from you and they don't know you've found out about it?"

Hoshi cut in. "It's been what, a week since we found out? And it's been going on for longer. And when they do say they're gonna come clean, we're all listening, and Nakayama just says she's been working on her dad's car secretly! Even if it's true, that's not the confession I wanted to hear! What's the deal here? Don't they trust us?"

Mia cringed. "Kondou-san, we were trying not to name names!"

Ami-sensei frowned, sleepy-eyed and altogether looking sick. "Sometimes there's a good reason to keep secrets. What kind of secret is it? It's bad to cheat on a test and keep that sort of secret, but if you're hiding your identity because you witnessed a crime in a foreign country and had to move, that's done to protect yourself, your friends, and the pursuit of justice in the world!" Sick or not, she almost sparkled at the end of her statement.

"It's always justice..." Hoshi groaned.

Mia poked her index fingers together nervously. "But it would help them more if they knew they weren't alone, right?"

"You'll make Ami-sensei think they really are in witness protection," Yukari said.

Their bedridden teacher continued to sparkle. "I'm so-" She coughed. "I'm so glad! Your dedication to your friends is admirable! Friendship and happiness spread throughout the world as we speak!" She winced. "Oh, my head..."

"Ami-sensei... what should we do?", Mia asked.

Ami-sensei smiled, in pain or not. "If it's that important, just let them know you're there for them, but don't push it or confront them. They'll tell you someday, I know."

"You know? How?", Hoshi asked.

"Because that's what friendship is, isn't it?"

Mia and Yukari slowly smiled. Hoshi had to resist banging her head against the wall.

"You two are the new Pretty Cure ~muu?" Starry's mother looked up at them from the communicator screen.

Asa gave the thumbs up. "Yeah! I'm Kawada Asa, but I transform into Cure Sunday for awesome adventures and stuff."

Yoko sweatdropped. "Nakayama Yoko, Cure Night. If you're Starry's mother, you must be from the Garden of Days, right?"

She nodded. "My name is Moonla. I was the partner of one of your predecessors, Cure Dusk, the last time the Etherium attacked ~muu. We sent Starry to help you just like Sunbi and I helped the other Pretty Cure ~muu."

"Susu..." Starry looked down and off to the side.

"How did Ami-sensei manage to contact the Garden of Days instead of Mars?" Asa tilted her head.

Yoko sighed. "How did she manage it at all? Communication between different universes isn't even supposed to be possible, and she's just a ditzy science teacher!"

"A really smart ditzy science teacher," Asa said.

Moonla frowned. "Starry? What's wrong ~muu?"

Starry took a deep breath. "I haven't been useful at all ~susu. I'm not a good partner for Pretty Cure like you and Papa were ~susu."

"Wait, that's what you were talking about last night?", Asa said. "No way! You've helped us a lot! If you didn't explain anything to us, we'd have died one day into this!"

"You've helped me a lot, too," Yoko said. "If it weren't for you, I'd still be trying to hide who I am and I would never have tried to be Asa's friend."

Starry shuffled his little feet. "But I can't fight, and I couldn't help at all when we were trapped by Omemi-san last week ~susu."

"Starry," Moonla said. All three of them looked at the communicator, and she continued. "Not everyone can fight, nor should they have to ~muu. But you have a strong enough spirit to help Pretty Cure, the Garden of Days, the Land of Legends and the other worlds ~muu."

He blinked. "I don't understand what you mean ~susu."

"You will ~muu." Moonla smiled. "Not just you, but many other people both here and where you are are becoming stronger every day as they become themselves ~muu."

"Becoming themselves?", Yoko asked.

"Asa! Nakayama!" Hoshi called from Ami-sensei's room. "Did you get the food yet? Lunch hour's half over and we have to get back to school in time for Okamoto to change back into her uniform!"

"Coming!" Yoko snapped to attention. "Sorry, Moonla-san, we'll have to shut off the communicator. Thank you for talking with us." She bowed.

"That's all right ~muu." Moonla bowed in return. "I'm glad to have been able to meet you two, and to have seen you again, Starry ~muu."

Starry took another breath and nodded. "Me too ~susu."

"We'll see you again, okay?" Asa shut off the communicator and reached for the Moon Piece. Yoko swatted her hand away. "What?"

"We have to ask Ami-sensei for it first." Yoko swished around and walked to the fridge. "We don't have time right now, either. We only have time to make..." She checked its contents. "Hmm, probably just noodles."

Asa pouted. "Fine, can we ask later today? We can even bring the whole class over to visit as an excuse."

Yoko stopped where she was. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah! You can even ask Mitsuishi-san for some flowers. I mean, she is dating your brother, and she does work at the flower shop, and you could probably get some cheap, right?"

"That's just taking advantage!" Yoko huffed. "Although maybe if they had some that they didn't want anymore... I think I remember her saying she had to throw perfectly good ones out because they would die more quickly."

"Yeah!" Asa walked up to the fridge and started pulling out vegetables, Starry hopping from table to table after her like she hopped from roof to roof as a Pretty Cure. "And I have just enough money for a card. I was going to use it to buy a sweet potato from the stand after school, but..."

"Asa, I think that's the smartest thing you've ever said."

"Whoa, really?"

"Come on, let's get this ready." Yoko checked the clock and put the kettle on.

Asa looked back at the communicator with its Moon Piece mounted on the top. "Man, though... Moonla-san really knows how to do the mentor mascot thing. Think we could ask her for tips on how to be heroes?"

"Just cut the vegetables."

Tachimany were useful for searching for things. If it came down to it, they could just split up and search a number of different paths, perceiving everything all at once. And so, nine identical shrine maidens, hiding their eye masks under the folds of their robes, walked the streets of Kazahana City separately in search of Moon Pieces.

It didn't take long for one of them to spot two certain schoolgirls going down the street with their friends. Pretty Cure. They were easy to recognize, the one with the little side ponytail and crooked ribbon, the other with long grey hair and a seemingly permanent cold gaze. The body watching them frowned. Those two had Moon Pieces.

So taking theirs would be the plan.

Explaining the plan had been a little hard at first, but the class slowly went along with it. Yukari's charisma might have helped; alternatively, Hoshi's fiery glaring from the back corner did it, with the Lily Class whispering that it rivalled Ice Queen Nakayama herself. (Yoko resisted facepalming. That name again?) In the end, Emiru stood up from her seat.

"All right, everyone, let's go see Ami-sensei." She looked pointedly away from Asa and Yoko and walked out of the room. After that, those still unsure got up and agreed to go. After working together on the end-of-class duties so they'd go more quickly, the Lily Class filed out in a neat clump, stopping only at the changing room so Yukari and whoever else had brought their street clothes to school could go change again. Asa gave a small, relieved sigh that the majority of her classmates apparently only changed when they got home and she wouldn't be the only one still in her uniform.

"Standing on the beach, echoes of the rainbow wind..." One of their classmates started singing to pass the long walk. Nobody else knew the words, so Asa started up "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" instead and was quickly shut down.

The long string of students taking up the whole sidewalk caught the eye of one white-haired shrine maiden, and the other bodies knew it as soon as that one saw it. They slowly began to converge around the house as Mia let the class in and they filed into every open spot in Nakata Ami's house.

"Ami-sensei, we're here!" Asa opened her bedroom door, and people started filing in. Yukari ducked and squished between people with the skill of a veteran shopper on the biggest sale day of the year and handed Ami-sensei a get-well card with every Lily Class member's signature. Seira placed a vase with five different kinds of flowers on the table, arranging it so the pink roses were in the middle, and Izumi Misaki and Misaki Izumi went around opening all the windows.

"Everyone..." Ami-sensei dabbed a tear from her eye with the corner of her bedsheets. "You are all such wonderful people, caring for your homeroom teacher in my time of need!"

Mia smiled a little and folded her hands. "We all care about you getting well, don't we?"

"And Nekoi-sensei sucks," Hoshi added. "The sooner you come back, the better."

Yoko coughed. "Ah, Ami-sensei, could we borrow one of your inventions for a while? The..."

"The communicator to Mars!" Asa smiled widely. "I've always wanted to talk to aliens!"

"Since when?" Hoshi made a face.

"Oh, of course!", Ami-sensei said. "I knew you would like it! The two of you are developing into visions of greatness, your bright minds reaching towards a wonderful future!"

At that point, amidst the chattering students, they heard a clink from another room. Asa's phone popped open and Starry looked through a gap between people. He snapped it shut and started to shake it. She looked down, then up at Yoko, and then at Ami-sensei.

"Sorry, just hold on!" Asa and Yoko bolted and forced their way through the sea of their classmates to the near-empty kitchen. The communicator was there, but the Moon Piece missing. Starry opened the phone again.

"Someone took it ~susu!" He popped out of it and landed on the counter, looking around. "Someone with white hair, I couldn't see very well..."

"None of our classmates look like that," Yoko mused.

"It's those guys!" Asa waved her arms. "The ones who transformed and divided! What's-their-names!"

"Tachimany," came a voice from behind. Asa and Yoko spun around to face four white-haired doctors in labcoats with golden embroidery of the number four on the pockets. They put on their eye masks in unison and took turns turning the Moon Piece around in their hands.

"What are you guys-" Asa started, but was cut off by Yoko storming up to Tachimany. "Yoko?"

"You intruded into someone's house!" Yoko pointed at them, glaring as intensely as she could. "What is wrong with you people? You didn't even have permission like we did! Ogata-san didn't let you in! What's more, taking that Moon Piece is outright stealing! Even we asked nicely for it! What's next, making a Hidoinaa in the house and wrecking everything? There's a limit to what you people can do!"

Asa sweatdropped, "Uh, Yoko, there's something more important here..."

Starry sweatdropped along with her. "This is just like the time with the Hidoinaa in the library ~susu."

"We just might do that." One of Tachimany's bodies drew out a Hidoinaa diamond.

"After all-"

"-there are so many things-"

"-around here to choose from."

"Absolutely not!" Yoko swung to smack one of them, who stepped back to dodge. "If you have to fight us, take it outside. Ami-sensei's got a yard. There are thirty-one people in this building other than you, and I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"What makes you think we won't just teleport out of here now that we've got this Moon Piece?"

Asa stepped up beside Yoko. "Because we have three more. You want those, right?"

"Asa..." Yoko's hand went to her transformation phone.

Tachimany looked at each other and then the trio in front of them. "You'd fight us-"

"-just for this Moon Piece-"

"-if it meant you could get it-"

"-and no one got hurt?"

Starry jumped down from the table and ran between Asa and Yoko and Tachimany. "Asa and Yoko are brave and they care about other people ~susu! Even people who used to be scared or make fun of them ~susu!"

"Starry!", Asa said.

"Get back or you'll get hurt!", Yoko warned.

"But..." Starry stepped back nervously. "But I want to help ~susu."

Tachimany frowned. "Even people who..." They shifted into one body, still holding the Moon Piece, and walked out the back door. "It's a deal. Come on, then. We may be actors, but we're honest."

Asa, Yoko and Starry each let out a small sigh. Starry hopped into Asa's phone.

"I'm sorry ~susu."

"Sorry?" Asa blinked. "Don't worry about that, they agreed to leave! Now let's go kick their butts and get the Moon Piece back!"

Yoko paused and nodded, and they both ran out onto the deck.

Tachimany stood there, smiling and shifting into the form of six girls with gold flowers in their hair and frilly white dresses. One stood in the back of the group, holding the Moon Piece in her arms, and the others held little bouquets.

"Are you ready-"

"-to face all of us?"

"If you can beat our Hidoinaa-"

"-and take our Moon Piece-"

"-then we'll leave you alone-"

"-and we won't hurt your classmates."

Asa and Yoko drew out their phones, slashed their Moon Cards through the slots, and held hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The light surrounded them and flashed away as soon as it had appeared. They stood, transformed, and went into their speech complete with posing.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Tachimany shifted into two businessmen and searched around the area. They tossed the tiny black Hidoinaa crystal at a wiry contraption hanging off of the side of the house. The two items merged, and the invention hovered into the middle of the tiny yard and shifted until it grew into a monster with a glowing cut-out face.

"Hidoinaa!"

"One of Ami-sensei's inventions?" Night blinked. "Do you know what it does?"

"No clue." Sunday climbed up onto the railing of the deck and launched herself into the air. "Let's beat it!" She kicked the Hidoinaa and landed on the ground.

"Everyone, look!"

The students crowded around the back windows, staring at the fight. Two girls, one in black and blue, the other in orange and pink, were leaping around in the air and punching and kicking a giant technological monster, trying to keep it boxed into Ami-sensei's small yard. Two men in white and gold stood on the deck, watching them and holding a large black chunk of stone. The students' jaws started to drop.

"Pretty Cure..."

"They really exist!"

"I saw them once, but I didn't want to say anything."

"This is so weird."

"Why are they here?"

"Where did that monster come from?"

"Wow! The orange one just punched it in the face!"

"I like the black one. Her costume's prettier."

Yukari stared out the window. "It's really true..."

Mia wrung her hands. "I hope they're all right."

Hoshi punched the wall. "Argh! Why won't they just tell us?"

"Don't worry." The three of them turned around to see Emiru, bracing herself. "They'll be fine. They're stronger than this."

"Omemi!" Hoshi shook her fist in front of her. Mia nervously tried to shush her, but the rest of the Lily Class was paying attention either to their sick teacher or to the fight outside anyway. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

Emiru adjusted her glasses to stare Hoshi down. "No, I didn't. I don't blame those two if they told you about me, but I'm not even a part of that group anymore." She looked past her to the crowded windows. "Have a little faith in Pretty Cure, why don't you? This is what they do. It's who they are." She shivered, like she couldn't believe what she was saying. "They believe in you, so the least you could do is return the favour."

Hoshi took notice of the crowd around her and lowered her voice to a whisper. "If they believe in us so much, why aren't they telling us anything?"

"Ask them, not me." Emiru rolled her eyes and turned around. "But they do, and you had better know it." She walked off, weaving through a crowd all too happy to part to let her through.

Yoko leapt into the air and spun forward, kicking the Hidoinaa as her leg came down. It stumbled backward and she landed on the ground. "Sunday!"

"Got it!" Sunday ran from behind it and shoved her hand out to knock it forward before it came crashing down on the fence.

"Yeah! All right!" The voices of their classmates came from inside the house. Tachimany turned around, startled.

"The people who hurt you can change...?" They clenched their fists in unison. "Are you simple? How could you believe that?"

"It's like I told you the last time we met." Night didn't take her eyes off the Hidoinaa as she blocked its punches. "You shouldn't stay with someone because you think you can change them, but that doesn't mean people can't change."

Tachimany turned back around to look at her from the deck. "That's a contradiction in itself!"

"No, it's not." She jumped onto the Hidoinaa's fist and ran up its arm to punch it. "People change... but only if they want to change!"

"Hidoinaaa!" The monster flailed.

Tachimany's two bodies' attention were now both on Night. Sunday grinned and nodded at her partner before flinging her phone into the air and right at the two businessmen.

"Wha-" They noticed the object flying at them a second too late, and Starry popped out of the phone in a stream of light, snatched the Moon Piece out of their hands, and landed on the outdoor furniture.

"Yes!" Sunday pumped her fist. "Night, now! We have to finish off this Hidoinaa!"

"Right!" Night ran over to her partner and grabbed her hand. Blue fire began to grow around them as they chanted.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

They launched themselves like a burning rocket and pierced through the Hidoinaa, curving their flight path up and then looping down. The two of them landed right on the deck, not crashing this time, as the Hidoinaa burned to a crisp in the yard. They put their arms out and stood between Tachimany and the house.

"...It looks like we've lost," said one body.

"But only for now," said the other. They teleported away, leaving Sunday, Night, Starry and the Moon Piece on the deck and Ami-sensei's invention sitting untouched in the yard.

"I heard you were speaking with the Boss today," Mekuramast said, twirling his wand. "Were you apologizing for enlisting Pretty Cure's classmate?"

_"Boss". He means Lord Eiender... the one who hasn't used his own name since we were defeated by the last Pretty Cure._

Kainatrol nearly snapped her riding crop in two from bending it. "That is no business of yours."

"I didn't say it was your _fault_ per se." He smirked. "There must have been a reason she failed, or left us, or whatever went on back there. Right, Kainatrol?"

"Don't mock me. For all I know, it was your fault."

"How could it be my fault?" He shrugged. "You're imagining things."

_At the time, I didn't think much of it. He continued to be "the boss" to us either way. Just like I was "Kainatrol" ever since I got rid of my old name and that disgusting world we lived on._

"Go away." She pushed past him and walked into a gap of nothingness. After she was sure he was gone, she looked down at her hands and up around at the empty Etherium.

_Today, he didn't talk about himself or even use "I" the entire time I spoke to him._

She smiled.

_It must almost be time._


	15. Pretty Cure Fanclub?

_Asa always needed my protection._

Ever since she was a child, Kondou Hoshi would spend her Sunday afternoons at the dojo in Fubuki Town. Her parents and the owner's family were friends, so it was only natural. The group training had lost a few members to people moving too far away or losing interest, and gained more from people moving into town or suddenly deciding they wanted to try something new, but overall had kept the same members. Hoshi was the only one who really remembered much of the little blue-haired girl who used to come to class when they were five or six. Kawada Asa... well, she was Kinou Asa then.

_You know how it goes. "If a nail sticks out, hammer it back in." In her case, the nail was a couple meters too big for the board._

Hoshi had usually come in to Asa doing strange things, trying to be like the people she saw on TV. Some of the class would back away from her and try to make themselves scarce when she looked for someone to talk to. The others would be standing around her, hands on their hips.

"Come on, Kinou," one taunted. "You wanna be a hero, right?"

"Of course I do!" She smiled, not even noticing the laughs behind her. "I'm already a hero!"

"Well," another kid smirked, "the seniors are actually monsters. Go kick them in the shin or something. They won't stand a chance against you." The circle erupted into laughter.

"Are they really monsters?" Asa poked her head out from the centre of the circle, looking at the older kids stretching out.

"Course, course!" A member of the circle shoved her out, snickering when she stumbled to catch her footing. "Go on. We'll be waiting."

"Hold it."

Hoshi, her hair messy and her uniform crumpled as much then as it was now, stepped between Asa and the seniors' practice area. She glared at the giggling girls behind her.

_I doubt we would have even been friends if I weren't always looking out for her, and she never stopped needing protection._

"Kondou-san?" Asa looked up at her classmate. "What are you doing? I need to fight the monsters!"

"No such thing as monsters. Move it, Kinou." Hoshi walked past her toward the small circle of classmates, grabbing her wrist at the last second in case she really did try to attack the seniors. "You girls, shut up and listen to me."

"We didn't do anything," one said.

"Yeah, we were just having fun," said another, waving her hands in front of her face.

"Shut it." She yanked Asa closer to her when she felt her trying to tug away to reach the 'monsters'. "You know this kid'll believe everything you say."

"I will not!", Asa protested.

Hoshi ignored her. "Wasn't scaring the kid half to death about Hanako-san the washroom ghost enough? You do this stuff again, I'm tellin' Hanamori-sensei, and you know you're gonna get in trouble."

The children whispered amongst themselves and scattered. Hoshi looked over her shoulder at the still-struggling Asa.

"Hey. Kinou."

Asa looked over at her, still straining to escape her grip. "What is it, Kondou-san? Let me go!"

_It wasn't like she could look out for herself._

"You listen to me, Kinou." Hoshi looked her right in the eyes. "Those kids are using you for cheap laughs. Don't do what they want."

"How do you know?" Her struggling died down, but she still looked up defiantly, though she was more obviously worried.

"Normal people know this stuff when they see it." Hoshi sighed and let go of Asa's wrist. The blue-haired girl stayed put, so she continued. "Listen, stay clear of those guys if they try and pick on you again."

"But that wasn't picking on me! We're friends!" She waved her arms.

"They're not friends." Hoshi glared. "They're not people if they're doing that stuff to you. Come on."

Asa looked down at the floor. "But I really thought..."

Of course she did.

_It's not like..._

Present day. Hoshi sat up straight in her school desk, tugging knots out of her wild hair with one hand while watching the front of the room.

"We've got a lot coming up, Lily Class!" Ami-sensei twirled and wrote a few things on the chalkboard. "Only two weeks until the class trip. We'll be spending the night in the mountains, and we'll go hiking and do some other activities, but most of the trip will be spent looking around the historic reconstruction of Gessou Village. So, all of you, get your permission forms in soon, okay?"

A few desk rows over, Okamoto Yukari's eyes sparkled. Hoshi sighed. The trip didn't seem that interesting. She kept her eyes on the front of the room.

"We've also got to start preparing for the spring cultural festival!", Ami-sensei continued. "Now, I know we've got a lot of time to work, but being prepared never hurt anyone! Because of this, today I'll be taking suggestions for what the Lily Class will be doing for the festival, and then we can vote!"

Izumi Misaki raised her hand.

"Yes?"

She stood up. "Do we have any guidelines? What's allowed?"

Misaki Izumi stood up beside her. "What's allowed? Do we have any guidelines?"

"Nothing inappropriate, nothing that will get me fired, and nothing overused." At that last point, Ami-sensei took a piece of chalk and wrote NO MAID CAFES and NO HAUNTED HOUSES on the board. "Something original!"

"Then we've got something," Izumi Misaki said. "How about we all work together on a display?"

"Yes, how about a mini-museum? We already have the beginning of something."

Some more classmates nodded from their desks. One spoke up. "We were just going to do something little, but with the cultural festival, we can get everyone involved!"

"I see, I see!" Ami-sensei clasped her hands together. "So, what is this wonderful idea going to be about?"

"It's a celebration we've put together as..."

Five girls stood up and posed. "The Clair Academy Middle School Division Pretty Cure Appreciation Society!"

Hoshi choked on the air she was breathing._ "What!"_

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 15: Pretty Cure Fanclub? That's Amazing!

Come lunchtime, the group of five girls walked into the multi-purpose room with their lunches and bags and took a seat at the nearest free table.

"This is so cool!" Kawada Asa twirled on her heel before putting down her takeout lunch box and sitting in one of the chairs. "I can't believe they actually voted for that Pretty Cure museum display!"

"Neither can I," Hoshi grumbled, sitting down next to her. "I'd rather have a haunted house."

"Kondou-san..." Ogata Mia frowned and took a bite out of her rice ball.

"Can we talk about something else for a while? The cultural festival's not for another month." Nakayama Yoko, sitting across from Asa, gave what Hoshi could only guess was a warning look to her not to give their secret away.

"How about the school trip?", Yukari offered. "Can you believe that we're actually going to see the Gessou Village reconstruction?"

"Boring," Hoshi said.

Yukari frowned. "Maybe _you_ don't like history, but... Oh, have you been to the open mall lately? You know, my parents' store has this amazing heart necklace that we've had since about halfway through second term, and we're thinking about putting it in the display window. It's got a huge jewel, about this big, and-"

"Just shut up, okay?" Hoshi rubbed her forehead and stood up, kicking her chair behind her. "All of you, just shut up."

"Hoshi?"

"Kondou-san!"

"I said shut up!" Hoshi pointed at Yukari and Mia. "You two dragged me into this whole thing, and then you made me keep my mouth shut about it and just let it happen!"

"What are you doing!", Yukari whispered.

Hoshi ignored her and whirled to point at Yoko. "You!"

"Me?" Yoko blinked and her eyes snapped open.

"Yeah, you! This is probably all your fault! I told Asa not to talk to you, and you went and became her new best friend!"

Asa stood up and grabbed Hoshi's wrist. "Hoshi!"

Hoshi yanked it out of her grip and glared. "Asa. Don't touch me."

"What do you think you're doing, Hoshi?" The crowd was looking at them. Hoshi looked around and sighed.

"Is it too much for you to at least _try _to be normal? It's for your own good." She turned on her heel, walking out of the room without her lunch.

"Kondou-san..." Mia dropped her rice ball.

"What was that about?" Yoko frowned.

Asa sat down and sighed. "Hoshi... she's a jerk like that sometimes."

The Etherium was blank as it always was. Kainatrol, Mekuramast, Tachimany (in the form of nine shrine maidens again, and crowding up the place) and Mireyes stood in a general clump in what could be assumed was the middle, according to where the walls were right now.

"So... you lost Binbeat."

Some of Tachimany's bodies sweatdropped, others nervously poked their pointer fingers together, and others rubbed the backs of their heads.

"We didn't mean to-"

"-but one minute he was there-"

"-and the next-"

"-he wasn't."

Kainatrol snapped her riding crop against her palm. "The one agent in this establishment who can be in multiple places at once can't keep track of a child!"

"We're not one person," they said.

"Insist on the plural some other time," she said. "Just explain your miserable failure now."

Tachimany cringed in unison. Mireyes gave a wrinkled frown, eyes hidden as always by the purple cloth draped over her head, and stepped between the crowd and the red-haired woman.

"The priority is getting Binbeat back before he causes too much trouble," said Mireyes. Or before something happens to him, she thought, but there was no use saying that to Kainatrol. She'd probably either not care or interpret it as a threat that the boy might go astray, like Devance, the boy Mireyes had been recruited to replace all those years ago, or like Millusion, Kainatrol's precious anti-Cure weapon who managed to fail on her first assignment. Besides, all things considered, Binbeat causing trouble for others was far more likely than him getting into it himself. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be out looking for him."

"Go on ahead," Kainatrol said with a shrug. "You're the only one who can tolerate the little brat anyway."

Mireyes must have been glaring under the veil before she teleported out of the core. Kainatrol turned on her heel and began to walk out.

"I don't like this."

"Don't you mean the Boss isn't going to like this?"

She whirled around to see Mekuramast casually walking after her.

"You have no idea what you're talking about," she said. "Why are you following me?"

"Can't I?" He shrugged and walked past her. "If the meeting's over, I'll be elsewhere."

The afternoon hadn't improved, and Hoshi had just been ignoring everyone. When the final school bell rang, she picked up her things and was out the door before anyone could even grab her or try to talk to her. Asa, Yoko, Yukari and Mia walked slowly down the hall in a sideways row.

"Um, Kawada-san, how long does it usually take for Kondou-san to start being nice again?"

"I don't know, Mia." Asa sighed. "It depends. But for her to suddenly start yelling at everyone in public, she must have been mad for a while before this."

Yukari looked over, bit her lip for a second, and then put her arms around the other girls, pushing them around the corner into a classroom. "Come on, come on, everyone. This will cheer you up!"

"What are you doing, Yukari?" Yoko dug in her heels but was dragged along anyway.

"O-okamoto-san?" Mia shivered.

"Don't give me those looks." Yukari removed her hands from her friends and stepped forward with a smile. Behind her in the classroom stood about a third of the Lily Class, typing away at computers, working on posterboard displays, arranging a set of badly-taken photos, and sewing the finishing touches on...

"...are those Pretty Cure costumes?" Yoko gaped.

"Mhm." Yukari smiled. "It's the Pretty Cure fanclub's meeting room. This is where everyone's been working on the stuff for the cultural festival! Why don't you help out? It'll keep your minds off things."

Yoko sighed. "What about you, Yukari?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Yukari tapped the side of her head, where the arm of her glasses would be were she wearing them. "I'm going to talk to Kondou-san and get things all cleared up. You girls need a break."

Asa frowned. "Yukari, I appreciate it, but... Hoshi's my responsibility. She got mad because of me."

Yoko looked over at Asa. Her heart tightened. The last time the blue-haired girl had gotten like this seemed so far away by now. So much had changed, and still Asa being quiet and reserved and worrying about how strange she was seemed so wrong-

"No."

Yoko almost thought_ she'd _said it for a moment there, before seeing Yukari shake her head.

"But..."

"No," Yukari repeated. "Kondou-san is... no, _Hoshi _is our friend, too, not just yours. You don't have to take sole responsibility for her, just like she doesn't have to take sole responsibility for you. This is about all of us."

Yoko slowly nodded and put a hand on Asa's shoulder. "She's right. Kondou-san got angry at everyone. Even though she can be rude, she seems like a nice person underneath. You don't have to work through all your problems alone."

Asa looked up at Yoko, then at Mia, who quietly nodded, and then at Yukari.

"I'll deal with it this time." Yukari turned to leave and called over her shoulder. "Okay, Asa?"

Kondou Hoshi, for her part, had made herself scarce. As soon as school let out, she sped out the door and walked as quickly as she could without attracting attention. It was still only February, and too cold for anyone to go into the sports equipment shed. The lock had rusted off long ago, and Kazahana City was too peaceful a town for replacing the lock to be near the top of the school budget. Hoshi yanked the door open, ran in, and pulled the door as close to shut as it would go from the inside.

She leaned against the door, looking at racks and bins full of sports equipment, and sighed.

"What am I doing?"

"I dunno."

Hoshi's head shot back, bouncing off the shed door with an echo of thin metal denting. She winced and rubbed the back of her head, looking around the small shed.

"Who's there?"

"Me!" A small boy popped out of one of the bins, scattering soccer balls everywhere. He scrambled out, flipping onto his feet, and bowed as if to an audience. "My name's Binbeat! What's yours?"

"Kondou Hoshi - hey, wait!" Hoshi cringed, holding the still-aching back of her head. "What are you doing here? This school doesn't have an elementary school division."

"I'm bored," he shrugged, tossing around a soccer ball like he was juggling it. "My babysitter's boring, and I'm hiding."

Hoshi groaned. "I don't have time for this. Come on, I'm taking you back to-" She stopped. To where? She didn't even want to leave the shed. That was why she was there. To hide. Hiding from her own stupid self and the consequences of making herself a spectacle just to try and stop her friend from being one too. "..."

"I'm not goin' anywhere." Binbeat pouted and threw the soccer ball at Hoshi. She quickly brought up her arm to block, and it fell helplessly to the ground.

"...Me neither." Hoshi sighed. "Not for a while."

They were silent for a few seconds. Then Binbeat started to hum.

"Stop that," Hoshi said.

"No fair!" Binbeat pouted, crossing his arms. "I can hum if I want to."

"Then go hide somewhere else."

Binbeat stuck his tongue out and paced around the soccer balls strewn over the floor. "Hey, have you seen any big black jewels?" He made a circle with one of his hands. "Like this big?"

"No," Hoshi said, barely looking at him.

"Anything that size? I already checked all the baseballs."

Hoshi sighed. "What? No. I appreciate that you're playing a game to keep yourself occupied, but I really don't have time for this right now."

"You're boring. Hey, did you see two girls who wear the same thing you're wearing? They have some."

"The same - this is a _uniform_," Hoshi said. "Every girl in the middle school section of the academy wears this."

"Aww. You're no help."

"Neither are you."

As difficult as it was to keep their minds off Hoshi despite Yukari's assurances, it was nearly as hard not to get caught up in the excitement of the Clair Academy Middle School Division Pretty Cure Appreciation Society. Asa, Yoko and Mia hesitantly looked over the displays in progress.

"You did this _yourselves_?" Yoko bent over a collection of photos.

"Absolutely!" One of the girls smiled and sticky-tacked another picture to one of the poster boards. "And now that the whole class is going to be on the project, we can do even more things before the cultural festival!" She called over her shoulder at Misaki Izumi. "Misaki-san! Do you think we could add a snack table and have the girls in the costumes serve food?"

"I think that would fall under 'maid cafe'," she replied, "and that's overused."

"It's overused," Izumi Misaki piped up, "but wouldn't it be more like a cosplay cafe?"

"Cosplay cafe, yeah," Misaki Izumi nodded back. "But that's overused too."

"Aww, it was worth a try!" The girl talking with Yoko turned back and smiled. "Maybe we can still get away with making little cupcakes or something. Do you bake, Nakayama-san?"

"Uh... no?" Yoko blushed. "I don't."

"Aww. But I'm sure someone in the class does! Don't worry about it!"

Yoko stood up from looking at the pictures and turned her head. There was Mia, nervously talking to some of her old friends from the popular end of the classroom. Yoko wondered if Emiru was helping with this thing. And there, holding a pair of customized dolls made to look like Night and Sunday... Asa.

Asa smiling.

Yoko cracked a small smile, excused herself, and walked over. "Asa? What are you looking at?"

Asa looked up and turned pink, sweatdropping a little. "Look at these, Yoko! Fujisawa-san made them out of her old Starlight Patrol dolls."

Fujisawa Suzu smiled from the other end of the table, busy threading a needle with a section of bright blue hair, apparently taken from a cheap hair extension, and pushing it through the head of another decapitated, bald doll. "I'm making more of them, too- ow!" She yanked her other hand away from the needle and winced, looking for a bandage. "Rooting is harder than it looks!"

"That's..." Yoko blinked. "Wow. Why all this effort?"

"Simple!" A boy from the Rose Class popped up, running a hand through his hair. "Pretty Cure are a breath of fresh air, like the warm spring breezes that Kazahana City was named for! They're nothing like anyone's seen before, and no one that anyone would dare to be!" He posed. "I want to marry them."

"_Both_ of them, Yokote-san?", one of the girls teased.

He coughed. "Sure, why not?"

Asa and Yoko looked at each other. "A...haha..."

"Hey, everyone!" The students all turned around to see a girl in a black and blue dress that looked as much like Cure Night's as a student club working off fuzzy memories and bad pictures could possibly get. Though her hair was done up like Night's with bits sticking up at the sides, its bright blonde colour immediately gave the girl away as Mitsuishi Seira. "I'm done changing! What do you think?"

"Looks great, Seira-chan!" Suzu smiled. Asa and Yoko looked at each other - 'Seira-chan' instead of 'Alice'? Things really were changing here.

Seira twirled around in the outfit. "I'd never have gotten to do this back when I was out of the country! This is the best school club I've ever been in."

"Well, we're not an official club yet," another girl reminded. "We'll have to wait for spring for the applications to open again."

"That's only a couple weeks from now!" Seira gave the thumbs up. "Practically no time!"

Asa's smile widened. She looked around at everyone, Seira going off to change back into her normal clothes, Suzu rooting the hair on the Sunday doll, Yokote Haruka fanboying and one of the Lily Class girls smacking him for being a pervert. She whispered to herself something she thought no one else could hear.

"Things can get better."

Yoko smiled.

"Aren't you gonna leave?"

"No." Hoshi sighed, still rubbing the back of her head. "Aren't you?"

"No way!" Binbeat crossed his arms. "Hiding's fun. You're hiding too, right?"

"I am n-" Hoshi stopped. "...I have better reasons to hide than not wanting to listen to my babysitter. I'm old enough to not even need a babysitter, so I'm not worrying anyone by hiding here anyway."

"I'm older than you."

"I doubt that."

"Am too!" Binbeat counted on his fingers over and over. "I'm... a hundred and four."

"You are not," Hoshi said. "You're, like, eight."

"Nine!", he protested.

"Nine's not a hundred and four."

The boy thought about this for a second. "Fine, I'm nine _and _a hundred and four."

"You can't be two ages!"

"Can so!"

The shed door squeaked and bumped open. Hoshi spun around to see Yukari, frowning and standing in the doorway.

"There you are."

Hoshi stepped back. "Okamoto? Please tell me you're looking for this kid, because if you're looking for me, I'm not talking to you. Sorry."

"Kondou Hoshi!" Yukari took a deep breath and stepped into Hoshi's personal space. Hoshi jumped back defensively, and Yukari put her hands on her hips. "Can you just stop?"

"Stop what?" Hoshi put her own hands on her hips. "What I did was for the sake of my friend. I protected her when we were kids! I was there when she had to stop coming to class! I was there when her dad left town and her mom made her change her name! And this whole time, she's just kept putting herself out there and kept getting hurt!"

"You guys are weird." Binbeat walked between the two, looking up at Hoshi. "You sound like my sister. She was always saying stuff like that. 'I'm trying to protect you.' 'Stay safe.' Booooooooriiiiiing."

Hoshi frowned. "Every kid feels like that. Stay out of this. You don't understand."

"Do so!" Binbeat stomped his feet. "Sis was nice and I liked her, but she was really, really boring and thought that just 'cause we got made fun of about our mom being gone and Sis looking weird and stuff that she had to look after me. When I ran away 'cause I got bored, she kept coming after me. She even fought the-"

"Binbeat." An old woman with a purple head covering walked up to the shed door. "There you are."

The boy gulped. "Old lady!"

Mireyes grabbed him by the ear and yanked him out of the shed. "How many times have I told you all not to call me that? You're lucky that I tolerate it when it's from you, Binbeat."

Hoshi pulled her eyes away from her fight with Yukari. "Are you this kid's babysitter?"

"Sometimes it feels like it," the woman sighed. "Come on, Binbeat. We've got work to do."

"Fiiiine," he groaned. "Just let go of my ear."

Mireyes obliged. Binbeat immediately tried to run away, but the old woman grabbed his wrist just as quickly, as if she knew just where it would be and what he was going to do.

"That's cheating!"

"Come on," she said, dragging him away. Hoshi and Yukari stood silently for a moment.

"So..."

"Shut up and leave," Hoshi said. "I don't want to talk to you right now."

"You shut up." Yukari looked her in the eye.

Hoshi shivered. "Okamoto, just-"

"I know you care about Asa and everything," Yukari said, "and I get that you want to protect her. And yeah, she's weird, and maybe people have a problem with people who are weird. But can't you see that everything that's changed in the past few months is a good thing?"

"Good?", Hoshi asked. "All I see is weird."

"That's the point!" Yukari put a hand on her heart. "The way things were normally was just trapping everyone, normal or weird. Now Mia's starting to come out of her shell. Seira stood up for herself and let everyone know she didn't want to be treated like an exotic foreigner. Omemi-san's nicer - and she's not running everyone's lives anymore. People who would never speak to each other are friends. And just like you said, it started with Asa being weird when you wanted her to act normal. Right?"

Hoshi frowned. "This isn't going to last, Okamoto. This isn't one of those inspirational movies where the new teacher comes in and lets everyone be themselves. You can't be yourself here. Move somewhere else if you want it that badly. Go overseas, like Mitsuishi did, or go be a hermit in the mountains, or I don't even know."

"Who says?" Yukari smiled.

"Everyone says. Life says."

"I think you're wrong."

"Why?"

Yukari looked Hoshi over. "Because I started out normal, just like everybody else. Being friends with people who were basically just using me for this, that or the other thing, going to really boring parties, denying the existence of Pretty Cure when I saw them with my own eyes just because people would think I was crazy? It's not fun. Not as much as this is. Even if everyone else goes back to normal, I'm staying right here with Yoko and the others."

She reached up to the top of her head and pulled a handful of pins out of her hair. The braid she wore wrapped around her forehead every day tumbled down, hanging at the back down to her waist.

"That includes you, you know."

The meeting was over, and everybody packed up their things and began to file out. Asa, Yoko and Mia walked out the school doors with their bags.

"Where do you think Hoshi and Yukari are?" Asa looked around nervously.

Yoko frowned. "Don't worry. Yukari knows what she's doing."

"Um, sorry, but I've got to go now," Mia said. "My mom's going to be home late, so I need to go make supper."

"Don't worry about it!" Asa waved, smiling a little too widely. "Have fun, okay? See you tomorrow!"

Mia bowed and ran off down the tree-lined path. Asa stopped to look around, and Yoko hesitated before stopping too.

"What is it?"

"Hey, look! Pretty Cure!"

The two girls turned to the side, startled. An old woman in light purple with her eyes covered and a blond-haired boy in green, the latter of whom was pointing at them and yelling, approached.

"Mireyes? Binbeat?" Yoko's hand went to her transformation phone. "What are you doing here?"

Mireyes smirked. "My ability, Future Sight, says that there is a Moon Piece somewhere on the grounds of this school. You two must know where it is, right?"

"A Moon Piece?" Asa gaped. "But we already got a Moon Piece here! It was Ami-sensei's paperweight! There's never two pieces of the mysterious broken item in the same place!"

Starry popped his head out of Asa's transformation phone. "We haven't seen anything like that ~susu!"

"In that case..." Mireyes transformed into her flowing white dress with the purple starred shawl over her head. "We'll take yours."

Binbeat followed suit, transforming into his green and white school uniform. "Yeah! All right!"

Asa and Yoko nodded at each other, swiped their Moon Cards, and grabbed each other's hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The light wrapped around them and burst, leaving them in their Cure outfits. They posed and went through the motions of their introduction.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Mireyes drew out a Hidoinaa crystal from her dress. "Come on, Binbeat. If we're going to defeat these two, we should put in more effort than just a single monster."

Binbeat pulled another Hidoinaa crystal out of his pocket. "Got it!"

They threw the crystals at the same time across to different sides of the pathway, infusing them with two different light posts. Both morphed into identical monsters, save that one's eyes glowed purple, the other's glowed green.

"Hidoinaaaa!"

"Two Hidoinaa?" Night stepped back.

Sunday pumped her fist. "We can take them!" She ran flying at one of the lampposts.

Night watched after her for a second before nodding and running toward the other. She tackled it and was quickly flung off, smacking into the cold pavement and skidding down so quickly she cried out in pain. "Augh!" She looked up. "Sunday!"

Sunday was being held upside down by one of her legs. "Night!" She swung her body over and punched the light post hard enough for it to let her go, barely flipping back to her feet in time to land. She ran over to Night on the ground. "Night, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Night said, wincing, but took her hand anyway to stand up. "These things are stronger than they look!"

Binbeat levitated up to stand on top of the green-eyed Hidoinaa. "That's 'cause we're awesome! And since you guys always work together, we gotta do that too if we wanna be even awesomer!"

"Awesomer isn't a word, Binbeat," Mireyes reminded as she floated to stand on top of the purple-eyed Hidoinaa.

Night looked over at Sunday. Her smile was faltering. _Asa... she's still worried_. "Asa-"

Sunday forced a smile. "Come on, Night, let's finish this off quickly!"

Night slowly nodded and reached out to grab her hand.

"Oh, no, you don't." Mireyes pointed a spindly finger at the girls. "Get them, Hidoinaa!"

"Hidoinaaa!" The purple-eyed Hidoinaa shot glowing beams from its eyes. Sunday and Night jumped away from each other, out of its path.

"That's just cheating!" Night ran forward and jumped to kick the monster in its light-bearing head. Mireyes leapt off the top, floating down to the ground, and the Hidoinaa brought up its head, cutting a laser swath through the school and hitting Night hard enough to send her flying into the air and crashing into the second-floor wall. She fell slowly out of the dent she left and dropped, crumpling, into a hedge.

"Night!" Sunday ran over to her. Binbeat jumped off his own Hidoinaa, which shot forward and leaned down to trip Sunday as she was running. The orange-clad girl fell onto the pavement, and the Hidoinaa grabbed her like a snake and lifted her up.

"You guys are off your game," Binbeat yawned. "You usually kick our butts. Why do you suck today?"

"They're hurt ~susu!" Starry struggled from inside Sunday's phone. "Leave them alone ~susu!"

"N-ngh..." Night slowly started to pull herself back up, thanking whatever force kept her miraculously alive. "Sun...day..."

Mireyes frowned and looked at her Hidoinaa. "Finish this."

"Stop!"

Binbeat looked up.

Mireyes turned her head, her eyes still covered.

Sunday struggled in the Hidoinaa's grip to look down.

Night winced and focused her eyes forward.

Between them all stood a figure in a Clair Academy uniform with wild brown hair, holding her arms out to guard Night.

_"Hoshi!"_ Sunday coughed, still struggling. "Get out, it isn't-"

"Asa!" Hoshi looked up. "Asa, I'm sorry. Everyone, Okamoto, Ogata, even Omemi has faith in you, and I've just treated you like you're gonna get yourself killed."

"What's going on?", Night asked. "How did you know-"

"Can it, Nakayama," Hoshi said. "I'll explain when neither of you is half-dead."

Binbeat looked up at Mireyes. "What's goin' on?"

"I have no idea," she stated flatly. "It's nothing we can't handle. That's not a third Pretty Cure or anything like that, just a normal girl."

Yukari ran up beside Hoshi. "What are you going to do? If these people even beat Pretty Cure, then..."

"Think I care!", Hoshi snapped. "I know Asa and Nakayama have the power to take these things down and I don't, but if they need help, I'm not gonna just sit there! It's called being a friend!"

As she spoke, white light seemed to glow around her. Yukari didn't seem to notice, as she nodded and glared forward, shielding Night like Hoshi was.

"What the...?" Night gaped.

"Now what?", Binbeat asked.

Mireyes shook her head. "I should have known."

Sunday stared down. "Mid-season plot twist?"

The light shot off of their friends as quickly as it had appeared, and it flowed into Sunday and Night themselves. Their pained expressions shifted into confident, unhurt ones. Sunday broke out of the Hidoinaa's grip, and Night ran up beside her when she landed on the ground.

"What in the huh now?" Hoshi blinked.

"Your guess is as good as mine..." Yukari stared.

"Friendship."

A woman in a soft pink sweater and skirt walked out of the trees, her red hair and pearlescent heart necklace glowing in the streetlights.

"Who's that?", Mireyes asked.

"Aww, _man!_ It's Dawn!" Binbeat stomped his feet and pointed at the offending party. "What do you want?"

"Don't tell me you've forgotten, Binbeat," Dawn smirked. "Every Pretty Cure team is different. Some need to hold hands to transform and use their powers. Some transform and attack separately. Some hate each other at first, some are friends from the beginning. Power bases and origins are different. Despite all this, they all have one thing in common. Pretty Cure's power runs on friendship."

Sunday looked up. "So that means because our own friends showed up to try and help us..."

"...even though they couldn't fight the Hidoinaa themselves...", Night said.

"It let you become stronger for a while." Dawn crossed her arms. "But more than that, the two of you are becoming closer as well. It looks like you didn't need me after all. Go on now, before anything else happens."

Night looked back over her shoulder. "Yukari... Kondou-san..."

Sunday looked over the opposite shoulder. "Hoshi, don't worry! It'll be fine from now on, okay?"

Hoshi twitched and looked to the side. "Y-yeah, yeah... Just fight already."

"Okay!" Night and Sunday linked hands. The blue fire of a Second Spin surrounded them, but the colour burned into a bright white.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"Despite the passage of time...", Sunday cried out.

"Our feelings will endure forever!", Night finished.

"Pretty Cure Unison Second!"

They launched themselves into the air and, this time, separated. Night flew right through the purple-eyed Hidoinaa's lightbulb, shattering it before burning it up and leaving a regular lamppost where it had been. Sunday did the same to the green-eyed Hidoinaa. They flew back together, grabbed each other's hands, and flew down towards Binbeat and Mireyes.

"Haaaaaaaaaah!"

"Binbeat, get behind me." Mireyes' eyes glowed purple, and before they could get a chance, she stepped in front of Binbeat, taking the entire attack herself. She skidded back, putting her hands up as a barrier, white light versus the purple light glowing from her hands.

"Nngh..."

Grey smoke exploded from nowhere, and the light faded. When the smoke blew away, Pretty Cure were standing on one side of a crater that hadn't been there before. Mireyes, gasping for breath and holding her side but otherwise okay, was on the other.

"Old lady!" Binbeat came out from behind her. "Are you okay?"

"I'll live," she said. "We'd better get back before anything else happens." The two of them teleported off, and the damaged schoolgrounds and path returned to normal.

"Asa! Nakayama!" Hoshi ran up to the Cures. "You guys are okay, right?"

"Yeah, perfectly fine!" Sunday smiled. "But, hey, how did you know we were Pretty Cure? How long have you known? Is that why you got mad? You gotta tell me, okay?"

Night looked off down the path. The woman who had stepped in on their behalf yet again was nearly gone. She looked back at her gathered friends. "You can sort all that out. I'll be right back, all right?"

"Yoko, wait!", Yukari said.

"I said I'd be right back." Night ran off down the path.

Out of sight of the rest of the group, the red-haired woman sighed at hearing herself being followed and didn't look back. "What do you need?"

"I know who you are!", Night said. "Who you are and why the Etherium knows you!"

The woman stopped, not looking, a hand going up - presumably to her white pearlescent necklace. "You do?"

Night caught her breath. "Sunday and I match. 'Day' and 'night'. They're English words, opposites, times of the day. There were other Pretty Cures twenty-five years ago, right here in this town. One of them was named Cure Dusk."

No answer. Night continued.

"'Dusk' fits the pattern. It means sundown, twilight, _tasogare_. If she had a partner, and I know she must have, then it would have to be 'sunrise', or..." She looked up. "Dawn. You're _Cure _Dawn, aren't you?"

She didn't look back. After a few seconds, she nodded.

"I was, once."

The red-haired woman walked out of sight, her pink skirt swishing in the February wind.

Mekuramast sat on a rooftop, looking down over Kazahana City. He heard someone teleporting in behind him and frowned.

"I thought you wanted me to go away, Kainatrol." He looked behind him and stood up to face her. "What are you after?"

Kainatrol smacked her riding crop into her gloved hand. "You've been lying this whole time."

"About what?"

"What do you think? You never really wanted to be here, did you?"

"What are you going on about?", Mekuramast asked. "I thought you had sense."

"I do. You don't, or you wouldn't think that I would fall for that."

"Make your accusations about my not wanting to erase worlds or whatever else you're making up later." Mekuramast stretched out his arms and turned away. "At this point? You can't even prove something like that."

"Maybe not. But proof always presents itself, and when it does, you'll be gone from all existence. Just like that disgusting world you and I came from."

The light glinted off of Kainatrol's eye mask.

"Just like my sister."


	16. Bonus! Cake Misadventures

Kawada Asa. Hair: blue. Eyes: blue. Age: thirteen. Homeroom: Lily Class, teacher Nakata Ami. Birthday: February 25th.

It was February 24th.

"What!"

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Bonus Episode: Asa's Birthday! Cake Misadventures

Nakayama Yoko's eyes went wide. "Why didn't you tell us earlier that Asa's birthday was tomorrow?"

Kondou Hoshi shrugged, running a hand through her mess of hair and tugging out knots. "Her birthday's her business, you know? Besides, her mom works that day. I didn't think she'd want to be reminded all the time."

Ogata Mia poked her index fingers together. "Doesn't that mean we should work harder to make her birthday special, Kondou-san?"

"I agree." Okamoto Yukari nodded and twirled the end of her braid around her finger. Since a few days ago, she'd stopped wearing her braid in a circle around her head and started wearing it down her back. It was easier to put up in the morning this way anyway.

Hoshi looked around at them. "I guess so, but if you guys are going to do something, just do something she's gonna like that won't take a lot of time, all right? Her birthday's tomorrow and all."

"Then it's settled," Yukari smiled. "Let's all surprise her in class tomorrow, all right?"

Yoko had a bad, bad feeling about this.

"Your birthday ~susu?"

Asa nodded, lying down on her scratchy, worn blanket. "Yeah, it's tomorrow! I'm not really expecting anything much, but maybe Mom will bring home a piece of cake and a present like she did last year. Do you guys celebrate your birthdays in the Garden of Days?"

Starry put a paw to the side of his face. "Hmm... We do, but we usually go to the shrine and then go home and plant a flower ~susu."

"Hmm..." Asa thought about this for a while. "I guess you guys don't have apartment buildings, then, right? Or do you have a community garden for that? I thought those were just for vegetables, though."

"Susu?"

"Never mind."

The instant Yoko got home, she headed to her room to change as usual, and emerged not in her oil-stained work clothes but a black shirt and pair of white lace-trimmed pants that her parents would actually allow her to wear outside of the garage. She walked over to the linen closet and began to rummage through its contents.

Her spiky-haired male body double walked past, boggling at her. "What are you doing, Yoko?"

Yoko sighed. "For your information, Takashi, I'm looking for the aprons."

"Aprons?" He raised an eyebrow. "What, finally ditched your hobby for something girly like normal people?"

Yoko whipped out an apron and smacked him in the face with it. "All that muscle-building is getting to your brain. I can do what I want." She walked off into the kitchen and tied the apron on, leaving her twin to stare after, shrug, and pick up his gym bag to leave.

Forget Takashi. She was making a cake.

Hoshi had headed back into the school instead of going home, and was removing items from the Home Ec room's fridge. She'd brought half of the things from home in the first place, so no one could accuse her of stealing. She just needed to use the room. Of course, she could just go home, but there was one thing: she lived in Fubuki Town. Riding the train to Kazahana City in the morning with a cake in hand was not her idea of a good time. Better to make it here, store it here in the refrigerator, go home and sleep, and come back to pick it up before class.

Perfect plan.

Mia paced around her kitchen, looking over a couple of recipe cards. She sighed and stopped in the middle of the floor.

"What does any of this stuff even mean...? I should just give up. I can't ask Mom, she's going to be late today." Her pink hairbow drooped. She quickly shook her head back and forth.

"No! I should be confident! Kawada-san is going to need a cake, and I need to learn to bake anyway, so I won't back out and get her a present instead! If no one makes her a cake, then it won't be a birthday, right?"

She took a deep breath.

"All right!"

But what of Yukari? Surely the shopping addict would go buy a present, rather than succumb to the same thought as the other three and think she was being original by making a cake instead, right?

Well, surely she thought that at some point, but as she wandered the Seiki Open Mall, it quickly became clear to her that she had no idea what Asa even wanted. The last time she'd taken Asa and Yoko shopping with her, Asa had been fidgeting and eyeing the door at all of Yukari's favourite stores, so clothes and purses were out. Clothes and purses, sadly, were the only things Yukari knew inside and out. She made a token attempt of going into a store to look for merchandise of Asa's favourite shows, but realized she didn't know what the girl actually owned or what half of it was.

Thus, she ended up in the Mugen Bakery, looking at a selection of store-prepared cakes.

Well, she tried.

"All right."

Yoko hadn't so much as touched the family's oven before, but the instructions on the back of the box of cake mix were simple enough. She was already well into mixing the powder, eggs and milk in the mixing bowl, and carefully read the box to see what she should do next.

Hmm, this was fun. She wouldn't drop cars for it, though, no matter what her brother said. Takashi seemed to be looking into a career as a professional nuisance.

"I think it was like this..."

Hoshi scratched her head and took two eggs to crack against the edge of the glass bowl. A crumpled piece of looseleaf held the recipe she glanced at from time to time. This would work. She got decent enough grades in Home Ec, didn't she?

Mia, on the other hand, was currently failing Home Ec. Logically, to her, making Asa's cake would be a good way to practice and get her grade up. In reality, she had read on the recipe card that she needed a pan, and brought out a frying pan onto the stove instead of putting a cake pan in the oven. The butter was taking too long to melt in the pan, so she'd turned up the heat and gone to read the newspaper to pass the time. When she looked up, the pan was on fire.

"Kyaa!" She turned off the stove knob and splashed a glass of water onto the fire. It only grew. "Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no..." What could she pour on the fire? Wait, the recipe said to add brown sugar! That was granulated, like dirt, and you used dirt to put out camping fires, right? She tossed the half-cup she'd measured into the pan. The fire went down a little. Mia grabbed the brown sugar bag and poured out a waterfall of sugar onto the butter pan until the fire inside it completely died down.

A pile of sugar on top of blackened, crispy butter residue remained. Mia looked at the mess, then at the recipe, and started arranging cherries on top of it.

Yukari was savvy enough of a shopper to know that loitering around looking at things was frowned upon if you did it for too long; the associates would assume you were waiting for them to get bored of watching you so you could steal something and run. Thus, she didn't want to spend too much time in the bakery, but none of these cakes looked good enough. Three were carrot; carrot cake was disgusting. Four had slid against the sides of their cases and were smushed to varying degrees. One was a cupcake cake; those were even more disgusting than carrot cake, because the sheer volume of icing made one's head hurt with a single bite. Then there was the one that looked like the decorator had been asleep while working on it. The icing blobs were so scattered and blurred together that it was difficult to figure out what the picture was supposed to be, and some of the icing ran off the side of the cake.

The only half-decent one was half a meter wide, a quarter of a meter tall, and had a small figure of a logging truck in one corner and some trees in another.

Well, one had to make sacrifices, right?

Yoko's cake was coming along well. She knocked all the bubbles out of the pan, smoothed the top with a spatula, and lowered the cake into the heated oven. Closing the door and setting it, she leaned back as the cake started to bake. It was a little embarrassing, starting a present at the last minute, but... the image of Asa smilling when she received the cake at school wouldn't leave her mind. Why was that?

"Nngh. It's way too hot."

Hoshi waved a tea towel in front of her face. Stupid school oven. The cake was already baking inside it, but the heat was filling the rest of the room. She dropped the tea towel onto the counter and made her way to the window, hoisting it open. Sure, it was February, but Kazahana City wasn't that cold. The worst she'd ever seen there was that freak snowstorm a few months prior that subsided within a class period, and she was near-certain, looking back on it, that that had been the work of one of those monsters. Her home was a lot colder.

The wind blew into the Home Ec kitchen, and she thought she heard birds.

The recipe called for pineapples. Mia ducked her head into the refrigerator and quickly confirmed that they were out of pineapples.

"Umm..." She rummaged through the refrigerator and freezer. "What else does Kawada-san like?" She thought for a minute. She'd only ever really seen Asa eating those instant packed lunches from the convenience store. Oh, and taiyaki from that stand in the Seiki Open Mall.

Taiyaki! Taiyaki was a pastry, which meant its ingredients were interchangeable with cake's, right? And as it turned out, they had natto in the freezer.

Ignoring all common sense, she arranged blobs of frozen natto in the crispy frying pan of ruined ingredients.

The cake was made. Yoko had left it out on the counter to cool and gone to do some homework before coming back to ice it. She heard her brother coming home, then her parents, but kept doing her math problems. Only when she was done, late into the night, did she get up and go to the kitchen.

She stared.

The plate on the counter was empty of anything but crumbs.

She took a slow, deep breath.

"TAKASHIIIIIIIIIIII!"

Hoshi was lucky on that front. No one was in the school, and she managed to get her cake done while it was still only five PM or so. No one could eat her cake when she left it on the counter, but she stood around observing it anyway for lack of anything else to do. She pulled out her phone and began to text her parents with the time she was coming home. She only looked up when she heard a bird chirping. Chirping and making tracks all over her good cake.

"Ew!" She dropped the phone and started swinging a spatula at the bird. It flew out the window in a panic. Hoshi glared after it and looked disapprovingly down at the tracks in her cake.

...well, a third of it she could save. This was the worst day ever.

At the late hour that Mia heard her mother coming home, the entire place was filled with smoke. She looked down sadly at the oozing puddle of food, and then over at a blob emerging from the clouds, which she could only tell by the long pink skirt was her mother.

"Mom?" Mia slumped over beside her creation. "Help..."

The next morning before homeroom started, the Lily Class was gathered around five girls and four cakes. Asa, in the middle of the clump of people, sweatdropped. Hoshi, Yoko, Yukari and Mia looked exhausted.

"Um... these cakes..."

"Most of my cake got ruined," Hoshi explained, looking at the small portion left behind in the pan.

"The bakery had nothing else good," Yukari said, pointing to her giant logging cake.

"I pulled an all-nighter making a new one," Yoko mumbled, nearly falling asleep in her desk right then and there.

Mia laughed nervously at her own cake, pink with a white heart and the best-looking one there. "My mom made mine..."

"Kirei was always amazing at cooking and baking!", Ami-sensei said. "It looks wonderful, Mia-chan! But I'm sure if you made a cake, it would be just as good!"

Mia turned green, remembering the bubbling black monstrosity in the frying pan. "N-not really."

Hoshi frowned. "Well, since apparently everyone had the same idea, what are we gonna do with all this cake? Asa can't eat it all. Okamoto's cake alone would feed the whole class and more."

Asa rubbed the back of her head. "I can share, you know, Hoshi."

"Wonderful!" Ami-sensei clasped her hands together. "Such generosity! The future of the world is looking brighter every day thanks to sentiments like this! I propose that we invite everyone in the middle school division for a party in the lunch room at noon! Cake for everyone, for Kawada-san's birthday!"

Asa turned bright red. "All that for me? I..." She looked down at the floor. "At my old school, no one even remembered my birthday."

Hoshi fluffed her hair. "C'mon. What are we if not your friends?"

"She's right, you know!" Yukari beamed. "Besides, now we all have a chance to celebrate!"

Mia smiled a little. "I think so, too, Kawada-san."

"Mmm..."

They all looked over. Yoko really had fallen asleep at her desk. As everyone around them laughed, Asa smiled.


	17. A Night in the Mountains!

_She can't prove it, of course, but she's right._

The main tent of the Chronos Travelling Show was being eaten away by nothingness. The woman standing in front of him - was that even really her, the same person who had performed with him and her sister and the others for years? - gave an unearthly smirk behind the white eye mask that had materialized on her face.

"So?" She laughed a little. "What'll it be, Kairos?"

The magician took off his top hat and frowned at her, trying to shake off the shivers as the world eroded around him.

"The Garden of Rings isn't worth living in anymore."

_I never meant a word of it._

Five identical white-haired girls stepped out of the shadows behind her. Kairos stepped back, staring at them.

"Who..."

"Oh, them?" The red-haired woman's smirk widened. "They're the recruiters of this operation. Etherium, it's called."

"We are Tachimany," one of the girls said.

"Now, you there," said another.

"Do you really-"

"-want to-"

"-enlist with us?"

_I was a coward and I didn't want to die. That's all I ever came here for._

Kairos felt the world undo itself around him. He stared straight at the empty space in front of Kainatrol, as if something or someone had been there.

He nodded.

Tachimany shifted into the form of two businessmen. Kairos' eyes shot open, and he tensed up. The two men who had been five teenage girls nodded at each other.

"If that's the case-"

"-then unlock the power-"

"-of your being-"

"-before this world ends."

Unlock the power of his being? He'd heard stories about that, but it wasn't real - the world was being eaten away, she was gone and her sister responsible, standing in front of him and calling herself by another name, what else was there to do? He shut his eyes and a blue light surrounded him.

"Now say the incantation-"

"-like she just did."

_And that's why I need the Moon Pieces._

He held out his hand and opened his eyes. A white eye mask materialized in his hand, just like the ones they were wearing. His suit and top hat shimmered and turned white.

"The power of this life shines brightly as the world from which it came fades away. I am..."

"Go on, just think of a name and a title," Kainatrol said. "If you're serious."

He put on his mask with a glare as it shone in the light. "I am the Master Magician of the Etherium... Mekuramast. I will leave nothing behind."

Four other figures teleported in. A man with a yellow-trimmed coat and a bottle of some sort of potion waved. "Hello, hello! Welcome to the show. I am Suiyacross, the Curing Poison."

A woman with a skimpy dancing outfit twirled the end of her hair. "Save the introductions. It'll be good to have you two with us. I didn't know you had the kind of pull to bring someone else in..." She looked at the redhead. "Kainatrol."

A young teenage boy in white and dark blue looked off to the side. "...Hn."

For one hundred twenty-five years, before the encounter with Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk, that was how it was.

_Kore... I need the Moon Pieces because of you._

Present day. Things had changed ever since then. The team had been Kainatrol, Tachimany, Suiyacross, Hitosalesque and Devance. Lord Eiender - the Boss, before he stopped saying his own name - was in his own category. Then there was him, Mekuramast. A number of years later, Binbeat had joined, but things generally stayed the same. Not after Pretty Cure. Now the Curing Poison and the Lost Dancer were gone, defeated, and no one had seen the Flawless Marksman in twenty-five years, though Mekuramast had a good idea of where he had gone. Mireyes was new, too. The Moon Dial was gone, so they hadn't destroyed her world, but she was there.

Mekuramast liked getting out of the Etherium to wander about on Earth, or the Land of Legends, or whatever else it was called. It felt different, almost nostalgic, to actually experience time passing around him. In the Etherium, time only worked to the extent that they weren't standing around frozen. Nobody aged in there. The passage of time was harder to gauge. There was no world around them, just a large expanse of nothing where worlds used to be. Here? Here was a world, a place, a real thing. And so he'd be real, too, for as long as he was there.

Oh, right. Finding Pretty Cure.

He honestly would have just blown the whole thing off. Spiting Kainatrol (since when did she give the orders around here?) was something he did every time he could get away with it. He looked down from the rafters of the bus depot as the Lily Class boarded the bus for their school trip.

But no. They had the Moon Pieces. He removed his top hat and drew out his wand.

"Gessou Village? I'll have to make myself appear there."

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 16: Class Trip! A Night in the Mountains!

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of beer..."

Kondou Hoshi facepalmed. "Asa, we haven't even left the town limits yet. Could you stop?"

"Geez, Hoshi," Kawada Asa complained, though she stopped singing and slouched back in her bus seat. "Even when I do normal-people things, you say it's weird."

"I think it's fun." Okamoto Yukari twirled the end of her braid. It had been a while now, but it was still hard to get used to her wearing it down instead of around her head. Ever since she'd taken her hair down to make a point to Hoshi - which had just looked ridiculous, but she thought the idea was charming enough - she'd kept it in a normal braid instead of a wrap-around. "Take one down, pass it around, ninety-nine-"

"How about not, Okamoto?" Hoshi groaned. "If we do that, we'll get thrown off the bus. Look at Ogata, she's not making any noise."

Ogata Mia turned pink and sweatdropped, quickly and poorly hiding the "Hottest Celeb Guys of the Year" spread open in the teen magazine she was reading.

Nakayama Yoko shook her head. The Lily Class kept changing, didn't it? It felt strange, though, even thinking that she was nearly used to the current situation. She, Asa, Hoshi, Yukari and Mia were quite possibly the strangest group of friends in town. For one, most of them used to be afraid of her. They all had different interests. Pick any combination of the five of them, and they'd fought over how important it was to be yourself versus how important it was to be normal. Yoko still wasn't sure sometimes what the answer was.

Oh, and she and Asa were Pretty Cure, defenders of the town and the multiverse. They shared custody of a small orange creature named Starry, who had taught them about Pretty Cure and that they had to find the thirteen Moon Pieces, which the Elder of the Garden of Days had scattered across Kazahana City to buy time. Finally, as they'd found out when Hoshi threw herself in front of an attack and granted them more power to destroy two Hidoinaa two weeks ago, Hoshi, Yukari and Mia had known about all this for months. Difficult to swallow, certainly, but it was all there.

"What do you think we'll do in Gessou Village, anyway?", Asa asked.

Yoko looked over at her. "...you slept through Ami-sensei's overview, didn't you, Asa?"

Asa gulped. "Maybe?"

Yukari pushed up her glasses. "Gessou Village is a historic reconstruction from ancient times. There are lots of things to see there that have been preserved from the past! It's really interesting. Plus we'll get to go hiking and do things like that."

"What about shopping?", Mia asked.

"Of course!" Yukari grinned. "It's my favourite thing!"

Hoshi groaned and looked out the window. "Hey, Ami-sensei's keeping up. What's with the van, anyway?"

Asa, Yoko, and Yukari all pressed their faces up against the window. Ami-sensei was driving in the next lane over in a dented, mud-splattered van, covered in enough dust to obscure its intended colour entirely and making clunking and rattling noises as it went along. Mia looked away and busied herself with her magazine.

"That's what I want to know!" Yoko gaped at the van. "What on earth is that supposed to be?"

Mia turned pink. "My mom's van... It needs a little work, but Ami-sensei doesn't have a car of her own, and she needed it to take the supplies that wouldn't fit on the bus."

"Needs work?" Yoko continued to stare out the window. "That needs a lot of work. It looks like it's going to spontaneously combust."

Mia's head sunk behind her magazine. "Nakayama-san, even if that's true, you don't have to say so!"

Yukari patted Mia's head. "Don't worry. That's just our Ice Queen Nakayama."

"I told you not to call me that," Yoko grumbled.

"Cheer up, Yoko. We're nearly there! Just ninety-eight more beer bottles to go!"

"Yeah!" Asa gave the thumbs up. "You take one down, pass it around..."

Hoshi glared in their general direction the rest of the ride up.

The white carved walls in the core of the Etherium were fading away more obviously now, and no one knew where the room began and ended. Mireyes, Binbeat, and Tachimany (two businessmen today) gathered in their battle outfits, and Kainatrol, in hers, stood in front of them.

"The Boss' plan is near fruition," Kainatrol began, hitting her riding crop against her gloved hand. "The only problem is that we only have one Moon Piece: the one I retrieved from the shrine. The three of you and Mekuramast have all found some, but had them conveniently snatched away by Pretty Cure."

Binbeat glared. "Sorry, lady."

"Binbeat," Mireyes admonished, not as strongly as she usually would.

"Hmph."

Kainatrol's grip on her riding crop increased. "Be that as it may, you'll get your chances now to relieve yourself of some of your bad luck. Mekuramast is off chasing after Pretty Cure. It seems they'll be out of the area for the next few days. Go into Kazahana City while they're away and track down any Moon Pieces you can get. I don't need the Moon Dial full, but get it as close to that as you can. This is all for the sake of the Boss' plan."

The others looked at each other, nodded, and teleported out with magic circles in green, purple, and gold. Kainatrol smirked and looked around the completely still room.

"Asa, come on! We're going to be late!"

"I'm coming!", Asa called from inside the room. "I just have to finish unpacking!"

"Geez, do that later." Hoshi sighed and walked the three other girls back into the bedroom they'd been assigned in Aki Guest Lodge. The walls were yellowing, the three bunk beds were old and their mattresses basically foam pads covered in rubber, there was one small desk, and everything had been drawn on by previous users. All the other rooms in the living quarters the class had been assigned looked much the same. Asa was unloading things onto her cold bed.

"Come on, Asa..." Yoko blinked. "Wait, why did you bring that?" She pointed into Asa's bag. A mechanical device was stuffed inside it, taking up more space than it should have and leaving little room for clothes.

Asa pulled it out and set it up on the desk, placing Moon Piece number IV in the metal claw at the top. "You never know! We might need it!"

"What is that thing?", Yukari asked.

"Ami-sensei's communicator to Mars," Yoko sighed.

"It actually contacts the Garden of Days," Asa said. Yoko instinctively looked around for anyone who might have overheard. Seeing nothing, she gave a sigh of relief.

"Come on!" Hoshi groaned. "You're holding us up."

"We'll get in trouble if we're late," Mia said.

"Sorry," Asa said. They filed out the door, closing it behind them, and followed the rest of the Lily Class out of the building and towards the meeting spot.

The class met up in a large, well-marked clearing just outside of the village. Ami-sensei cleared her throat, standing at the front with a podium in front of her and Ogata Kirei's broken-down van behind her.

"All right, everybody! To start off with, we're going to be touring the preserved historic sites of Gessou Village!" She twirled around and gestured toward the village with a flourish. "Follow me, and we'll stop at various buildings that have been kept in their original state, as well as important places to the history of the area! After all, we're close enough to home that everything here has affected the development of Kazahana City. Learning this will improve all your lives greatly!"

"And you'll finally get that promotion, right?", someone called out from the crowd.

"Yes!", Ami-sensei replied without a hint of irony.

"And the world will become a beautiful place?", Yukari added.

"That's exactly what I was going to say!", Ami-sensei said.

"And everyone will know the true meaning of justice!" Asa gave a heroic pose probably ripped off of DaiFighter.

"Justice and love and friendship!" Ami-sensei did the exact same pose.

Everyone else either stared, laughed, smiled, or, if the person's name was Kondou Hoshi, facepalmed.

They'd been searching the town for months now, so finding Moon Pieces had become easier than it sounded. Of course, once Tachimany had gone off to investigate the old fairgrounds, Mireyes pulled out her crystal ball.

"Why can't we just go to the school and find the one we already tried looking for?", Binbeat asked. "Besides, why don't you wanna tell people your power could help us find the Moon Pieces?"

"Future Sight isn't infallible, Binbeat," Mireyes said. "As for the Moon Piece at Clair Academy, I'm saving that one in reserve. Kainatrol's recent behaviour makes me uneasy."

"What, having a stick up her butt? She's always like that."

"Acting as if she is in control of everything." Mireyes sighed. "I will be investigating the southwest area of Kazahana City. Binbeat, go to Sapphire Park. Try not to cause too much trouble."

"Geez, fine." Binbeat crossed his fingers behind his back. "Causing trouble's our job. Can we just go now?"

Mireyes facepalmed. "I suppose so." She teleported out in a flash of light with a purple magic circle underneath her feet.

Binbeat grinned, teleported to the park, and drew out a Hidoinaa crystal. "Now, this is gonna be fun!"

Something felt off about this assignment. It might have been because the Boss had suddenly become more reclusive and Kainatrol was giving the orders. Mekuramast automatically hated anything that came out of her mouth. On the other hand, being given free reign to go after Pretty Cure? Maybe she just wanted him out of the way. Hm.

Oh, there they were. In civilian clothes and without his eye mask, he wandered up to the back of the street, a little bit away from where the Lily Class was gathered. Right at the edge of the village was a small, calm lake covered in mist from the waterfall leading into it from the mountains. Mekuramast's eyes went from the class gathered on the rocky beach to the lake itself, and then to the thick, towering tree that the teacher stood in front of.

"Now, class!" He swore he'd seen that woman before. At the magic show, or around town somewhere? "This is Gessou Lake, the centrepiece of Gessou Village. Nekoi-sensei should be giving the lecture here, since I teach science, not history, but, as your long-suffering homeroom teacher, I will plow through this interdepartmental obstacle with nothing but pure burning spirit!"

Mia's eyes lit up. "It's really pretty, isn't it?"

"It is," Ami-sensei said, "but it's a tragic place, too. Gessou Village used to have three great families who ran the affairs of the general area. They were the Haru family, the Fuyuki family, and the Aki family, the last of whom gave their name to the lodge we're staying in tonight."

Yoko raised her hand. "But didn't the Haru family found Kazahana City? Why would they make their own town if they were already powerful in a nearby village?"

"That's what I'm getting to," Ami-sensei continued. "The children of the Haru and Fuyuki families fell in love, but the Aki family didn't want the other members of the triumvirate to unite against them, so they pressured the children's parents to break them up. The two of them met at this lake and tried to run away together, but they were caught and got into a fight. The history books don't all agree on what happened to them, but most say that both of them died that day."

The man standing two meters behind them clenched his fists at his sides.

"That's a pretty depressing story, isn't it?" Omemi Emiru pushed up her glasses, the glint of the sun obscuring her eyes.

"But they could have survived!" Asa put her hands on her hips. "Not all the books say they died, right?"

"True," Ami-sensei sighed, "but what we do know is that the Haru family and the Fuyuki family both left town outright after that. The Haru family went and founded Kazahana City, and the Fuyuki family founded Fubuki Town. It's a terribly sad story... If only these people had believed in the power of love and justice!"

Yoko was looking at the ground. Yukari frowned and raised her hand. "Ami-sensei, is my watch wrong or have you gone over time?"

Ami-sensei blinked and looked at her own watch. "Ah! You're right! It's past twelve, isn't it? You can all go for lunch and look around the village shops. Stick together and don't get lost!"

The class cheered and broke up into small groups. Asa immediately grabbed Yoko's wrist. "Hey, Yoko, let's-"

Yoko didn't look at her. "That story... Something like that could happen to anyone, couldn't it?"

Hoshi put her hands on her hips. "Sure, it could, but get your mind off that, Nakayama. You're scaring people."

"Let's go look at the stores, okay?" Yukari looked at Yoko and smiled. "That'll cheer you up!"

"She's not you, Okamoto," Hoshi sighed.

"It still works," Yukari said. "It works for anyone."

Yoko sweatdropped and brought her head back up, her face bright pink. "You're right. Let's all go."

Asa frowned at Yoko. _Hmm..._ "I'm going to go see something, okay? You guys go on ahead!" She smiled and waved, running off.

"Where's she going?" Mia blinked.

"Who knows?" Hoshi shook her head. "She'll be back."

"That's a level of trust I haven't seen from you, Hoshi," Yukari teased.

"Yeah, yeah." Hoshi waved her hand dismissively. "Let's just go. But if you force us into too many girly purse stores, I'm out of here."

They left Asa to do her thing, whatever that was, and walked along, talking about lunch options.

Spindly, leafless trees twisted into green-eyed monsters and tore up the landscape. Binbeat stood on top of one of the Hidoinaa, tossing Moon Piece serial number VI from hand to hand.

"Blah, blah, blah," he said, half to the Hidoinaa, partially to himself, and partially to the clueless and panicked parkgoers. "What does she mean, don't cause too much trouble? That's way boring. This is fun!"

A radio reporter hid at the side with a microphone, running out of the way of the branches. "Now for the small town news. In an unbelievable twist, it appears that the reports of monstrous beings in Kazahana City are indeed true, which casts doubt on the falsehood of similar reports from twenty-six years ago. However, that leaves one question: where are the mysterious girls who have until now been spotted fighting them?"

"Binbeat?"

Binbeat dug a golden communication ring out of his pocket and lifted it up to speak into it. "Yeah, what's going on?"

"I've found a Moon Piece at the bus station," Mireyes said. "Our months of searching the town have paid off. Tachimany are nearly done at the old fairgrounds. If you've found anything, return to the Etherium's core."

"Aww, man." He stuck his tongue out at the ring, not that it transmitted anything but audio. "Comin'." He teleported out, leaving the monsters to rampage in the park. At least he'd gotten some fun out of it.

Having decided that lunch came first and shopping immediately after, the group of Yoko, Mia, Hoshi, and Yukari all bought takeout lunch boxes from a nearby restaurant and found a weathered picnic table by the back steps of the Aki Guest Lodge. Yoko took a seat on one side and looked up at the sky. Even though it was only just past noon, it looked like two stars were falling out of the sky. She blinked and shook her head, and they were gone.

"I'm letting this get to my head."

Mia took the seat next to her, and Hoshi and Yukari the opposite side. They opened their lunch boxes up and looked at one another's.

"Egg omelette again?" Hoshi stared at Yoko's box. "Is that the only thing you ever eat?"

Yoko started to glare, but stopped herself and just sighed. "I like egg omelette."

Mia carefully poked a child-sized lunchbox set between her and Yoko. "Um, who's the fifth box for? It's a little small."

"Oh, right." Yoko opened up the transformation phone attached to her bag. "It's lunchtime, Starry."

A ball of light jumped out of the phone and popped into the form of the plush-like orange creature. "Thanks a lot ~susu! I was really hungry ~susu!" Starry hopped onto the table, opened the box, and began eating the riceballs and natto inside.

Yukari smiled as if she were already used to seeing him up and walking around rather than pretending to be a plushie. "I wonder when Asa's getting back?"

Yoko's face turned pink and she concentrated on her egg omelette. The other three girls looked at each other, and Starry just kept eating. The table was silent for the next minute until-

"WORK, YOU PIECE OF JUNK!"

Yoko's head shot up. "Was that Ami-sensei?"

Hoshi got up from her food. "Sounded like it. Wanna go check it out?"

Yukari and Mia nodded. The girls picked up their lunch boxes (and Yoko took Starry's, which was already mostly empty, as he went back into the phone) and walked down to the clearing where the bus had parked.

Ami-sensei stood halfway in and halfway out of Mia's mother's van, turning the key again and again. No response came, and she pulled herself out of the van and kicked the side.

"Stupid-this-is-important-why-won't-you-work-when-I-need-you-you-horrible-excuse-for-a-VAN!"

"Uh... Ami-sensei?"

She turned around and sweatdropped at her four students standing in a line. "Oh... I'm sorry." She sighed. "It's terrible, really! I just heard on the radio, there's an emergency back in Kazahana City!"

"A what?" Yoko's hand instinctively went to her phone. Oh. Right. Asa was still out. Yoko stopped where she was.

"I couldn't hear much, and Gessou Village is remote enough and high enough up on the mountain that we don't have cell reception up here yet," Ami-sensei said. "At least not for my phone. I know there's better technology these days, but a teacher's salary is somewhat limited..." A hand went to a purple portable tape player clipped to the side of her skirt. Did people seriously still carry those? "I need to get back into town, but the van won't work. I can try to fix it, since there are tools in the bus, but I don't know much about cars. But don't worry! I know enough about physics to figure it out! It'll just..." She frowned. "It might take too long, that's all."

The other girls looked at Yoko. She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"...I can fix it."

Ami-sensei blinked. "You can, Nakayama-san?"

"Sure." She nodded. "Provided it isn't really terrible, I think I can help you get it fixed. But, um... could you lend me something to put over my clothes? My parents will kill me if I get oil and grease on my uniform."

The teacher's eyes lit up and she twirled around before clasping Yoko's hands. "Absolutely! I've got just the thing. Please do your best, Nakayama-san!"

Yoko sweatdropped and slowly nodded. "...All right." She turned to her friends. "This could take a while. You can go back to the table. Could you watch over our - my lunchboxes for me?"

Asa hadn't had a lot of spending money, but with what she had plus a little bit of her lunch money, she'd gone into a tourist shop and picked up a present. It was a tiny snowglobe with a girl inside looking mournfully up to the sky and reaching her hand out. Asa laughed a little, walking out of the store and looking at it.

It even sort of looked like Yoko, when Asa thought about it. Maybe giving her this would mean she wouldn't be so depressed.

Asa put the snowglobe in the orange bag she carried with her, old and ripped in places with "Asa" stitched onto the front. Now to find the others! Her eyes lit up at a shiny sign in a store through an alleyway.

She bolted over that way. The next thing she knew, she'd hit the dusty ground.

Coughing and pulling herself to her knees, she turned her head around to see that she'd been tripped by a whip of scarves. A blue-haired man walked into the alley, summoning a white eye mask and transforming his clothes into a white suit and top hat.

"This has gone on far enough," he said, walking up to her. "Where are the Moon Pieces?"

Asa pulled herself to her feet, cringing at the gravel embedded in her hands and knees.

"I don't have them," she said, not even having to lie. "See?" She took out her transformation phone and slashed the Storage Card, yielding nothing.

Mekuramast frowned. "Then they're with the other girl." He pointed his wand at her. "Tell me where she is. I need them."

"Wait!" Asa moved to the side. "Why'd you help us?"

"Help?" He shook his head. "I never did anything like that."

"You did so." She pointed into his face. "Back when Yoko and I were stuck in Omemi-san's fake world. You threw one of your cards so I'd figure out it was an illusion, and you put one of your scarves on the window so I'd find Yoko. You're secretly just like GoldFighter, aren't you?"

"I do n-" He blinked. "Who?"

"GoldFighter!" Asa put her hands on her hips. "His real name's Korekiri Yuu. He says he's DaiFighter's eternal rival, but he's actually a pretty good guy. He's just trying to save someone."

Sigh. "Why do I even ask with you?" Mekuramast returned to the serious frown he had before. "I didn't do what I did to help you. I just didn't want Kainatrol to get her way. That is it."

Asa stood her ground. "Then why do you hate each other?"

Mekuramast's eye mask glinted in the sun, blocking his eyes.

"It's none of your business."

"Three new Moon Pieces," Tachimany said, in the form of four doctors again, as they turned Moon Piece serial number IX over in their hands.

"We _better_ have gotten that many," Binbeat said, tossing number VI around. "We've been searching for months, and Pretty Cure aren't even here."

Mireyes drew number VIII out from her robes. "With this plus the one that Kainatrol retrieved from the shrine a number of months ago, we should have four. The Moon Dial still won't even be close to a functional level."

"Don't you think I know that?"

A wall phased out of existence to allow a smug-looking Kainatrol to pass through, carrying the Moon Dial. Only one Moon Piece, numbered with XII and sitting at the top of the circle, was inside. She placed it on a carved white stand (had that been there before?) and stepped back.

"This is the next phase of the Boss' plan," she said, unable to keep her own amusement out of her voice. "Of our plan. But, of course, with only four Moon Pieces, we can't go anywhere."

"So, what are we gonna do?" Binbeat made a face.

"Just set the ones you have into the Moon Dial and leave everything else to me." Kainatrol snapped her fingers. "Now, we can go pay those girls a visit."

With Ami-sensei's help (and instructing her whenever she didn't know the name for something or what it did), it hadn't taken long for Yoko to fix the van. Ami-sensei had thanked her and driven off, leading Yoko to wonder what kind of emergency was happening in the town anyway. Either way, it was time to go back to her friends and her lunch box. She walked up the hill, looking over through the trees into the village-

A scream.

Yoko quickly darted to the side and ran towards the sound. The village. An alleyway. She ran that way, panting and gasping for breath, and stopped at the entrance to cling to the side of a building and try to ignore the gelatinous feeling in her legs.

Someone grabbed her from behind. She twisted and saw an expressionless face and blank eyes. Looking forward, she saw a woman in a white suit, gloves, and eye mask, with a dark red vest.

"K-Kainatrol," Yoko managed, struggling to escape and breathe at the same time.

"It's amazing the kinds of traps you'll fall for." Kainatrol tugged at one of her gloves with disinterest. "Not that it matters. Hand over the Moon Pieces."

Yoko glared. "I _can't_."

"In that case." Kainatrol walked over to the struggling girl, removed the transformation phone from her bag, and flipped it open.

"Take that ~susu!" Starry popped out of the phone and smacked her in the face.

"Ngh!" Kainatrol dropped Yoko's phone and seethed at the little creature. Having broken off eye contact, the bystander holding Yoko fuzzily returned to normal, and she quickly shoved him off before he realized what was going on.

"Good work, Starry." Yoko picked up the phone and ran past Kainatrol, followed by the mascot. "Now where's Asa?"

"Right here."

Yoko stopped and looked up. Tachimany, in their form of six lumberjacks, filed into the alleyway from all sides. Two of them held Asa, squirming around to get out, followed by a frowning Mekuramast.

"I had this under control," Mekuramast said, glaring at Kainatrol. "Why didn't you tell me the rest of the plan?"

"Do you think I suddenly trust you?" She smacked her riding crop into her palm. "Either way, you at least gain some credibility for catching one of them. I got the other, so all we need to do..."

Yoko opened her phone up again, but one Tachimany grabbed her while another took the phone and slashed the Storage Card. Three Moon Pieces emerged in midair, and a third Tachimany grabbed them.

"No!" Asa called out. She wrestled her way out of the grip of the two bodies holding her and ran to Yoko's side, grabbing the purple transformation phone out of the hand of the body holding it. Tachimany (that body) brandished a golden axe, but Asa ducked out of the way of its swing and shot her hand up to knock him back before swirling on the one holding Yoko. With this distraction, Yoko twisted out of Tachimany's arms and took her phone and cards from Asa. Standing in the middle of the circle, they nodded and slashed their Moon Cards.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The light washed over them, and they appeared in their Cure outfits, posing in the middle of the circle.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Kainatrol crossed her arms. "It doesn't matter. We got what we came for. Let's go back."

"Oh, no, you don't!" Sunday pointed at her. "You aren't escaping that easily!"

"Hmm, hmm. Aren't we?" She smirked. "Tachimany?"

"Exactly as planned," said one body.

"We'll start it now," said another.

Still standing in a circle around the Cures, they shifted into the form of eight hooded figures. A giant gold magic circle lit up underneath their feet.

"What the-" Sunday looked around.

"What are they doing?", Night asked.

A flash of light, and everybody was gone.

White. Carved walls shifting into nothingness and back again. In the middle, everyone from the Etherium standing and surrounding the Cures.

"We're back here again!" Night looked around the room.

"In the Etherium?" Sunday got into a battle-ready position.

"No duh." Binbeat appeared, floating in the air. "We only got four Moon Pieces. Plus yours, we only got seven. We need thirteen."

Mireyes cleared her throat on the other side of them. "The Moon Pieces that are here will be amplified by the Etherium, which by its nature lacks much of a concept of time." She looked up at Kainatrol. "That was your theory, wasn't it?"

"Quite." Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "Tachimany, bring the Moon Pieces."

One of Tachimany's bodies went over and placed pieces I, II, and V into the Moon Dial. It gave off a black glow for a split second.

"Now what?", one of their bodies said.

"What's your plan-"

"-and why did you-"

"-ask us to bring-"

"-Pretty Cure here-"

"-after we took-"

"-their three Moon Pieces-"

"-away from them?"

Sunday and Night exchanged glances. They didn't know about the fourth one? The one that was sitting back at the guest lodge in the Communicator to Mars?

"All right, I've had enough of this!" Night looked at their gathered enemies around the room. "Stop playing with us!"

"Yeah!" Sunday posed. "There's nothing you'll stop at unless we stop you ourselves!"

Night raised an eyebrow. "Where have I heard that before?"

"You might be right," Kainatrol said, positioning herself behind the Moon Dial. "But, you won't ever know... Moon Dial!"

Her eyes, then her whole body, took on a deep red glow that spread to the Moon Dial itself. The room around them swirled and faded in and out of existence more quickly than before.

"Erase these two," she said. "Completely!"

"What-" Night started.

"No way!" Sunday gasped.

The light enveloped them, deep and red. There was no time to get out of the way or even to think, to move, to do anything but the first reflex.

Night grabbed Sunday's hand.

The light flashed and faded. Where Pretty Cure had stood, there was nothing but a snow globe with a sad girl inside, which dropped to the floor and cracked.

Back in Gessou Village, Starry scrambled out of the alleyway and through the roads, eyes fixed on the Aki Guest Lodge.

"Where did Sunday and Night go ~susu?" He ran as fast as his tiny legs could, not even caring about being seen. "I need to get someone to help ~susu!"

It felt... blank. Empty. Of course it would. Nothing was there, right?

No. They were there. Two people, holding hands, resonating with the power of time. People who should not have been there.

Things that should not have been there called out to each other. Maybe. Or it might have just been a coincidence that, while drifting through the nothingness, they happened to touch an apparition of a clock. It expanded in front of them and spun backwards, and backwards, and...

Sunday and Night opened their eyes. The world unfolding in front of them wasn't the Etherium at all. It was an actual place, although a strange one. People moved around in horse-drawn carts or walked through stone-covered streets, all gathering around a circus tent that was... white? No, the colour was fading in. Blue and red.

"We're not dead..."

The girls looked at each other, slowly and reluctantly letting go of one another's hands. Sunday spoke again.

"...but where are we?"


	18. The Pain of Two Sisters!

_My sister stole everything from me._

The Garden of Rings was beautiful, the striped tents of the Chronos Travelling Show standing out atop a hill and bustling with people filing in to get to their seats. The wagons the performers stayed in were less nice, and thus shunted off to the side and hidden behind a few trees. A young woman with board-straight dark red hair climbed into one of them, shaking.

_She stole my spotlight._

"It can't be..." She stared at a poster on the wall - _Chronos Travelling Show! Featuring some of the greatest acts from around the world _- and took in the image of a tall red-haired ringmaster and his two young daughters. She scowled and tore the picture down to crumple it, not bearing to look at the wall underneath it.

_The attention of our father, the audience, the other members of the show..._

"It can't be. She can't be doing this." The poster was balled up and thrown out of the cart, and the woman shut her eyes to keep from shaking. It was a few moments before she opened them again and her hand reached out to the side, closing around a pair of rusted old scissors.

"What are you doing?"

Her heart jumped, and she looked over at the door she'd left open. There stood two white-haired businessmen in gold outfits, looking her over.

_Even our dream._

"Cutting my hair," she said, defiantly raising the scissors and chopping off a large chunk of her hair to chin-length. "Who are you and what are you doing here?"

"We've seen you around before," said one of the men - rather, one of the bodies.

"You're unhappy, aren't you?", said the other.

"Unhappy?" She glared with bright yellow eyes and snipped off another section. "Is that what they're calling it now? Exactly who are you?"

They looked at each other and shifted into the form of five girls a number of years younger than her. Her head shot up and she stared.

"We were here-"

"-to investigate this world-"

"-and possibly find someone-"

"-whose only wish-"

"-is the same as ours."

The red-haired woman's eyes went from the mysterious visitors to her riding crop on the pile of rags she slept in. "What would that be?

The five girls looked up and spoke in unison. "To make it so that this world and everybody on it never existed."

_But now, I've got everything under control._

Present day, five minutes ago. Kainatrol stood with the Moon Dial, seven of thirteen Moon Pieces sitting inside. Mireyes and Binbeat stood to one side, Tachimany to the other, and Mekuramast completing the circle. In the middle were Cure Night and Cure Sunday, looking around the fading core room.

Sunday posed. "There's nothing you'll stop at unless we stop you ourselves!"

"Where have I heard that before?", Night said.

Kainatrol gave a smirk and moved behind the Moon Dial. The Etherium had less of a concept of time than the Land of Legends or any other world that hadn't been erased and added to the pile. The Moon Dial, complete or incomplete, would be stronger here.

"You might be right, but you won't ever know..." She put her hands on the broken sundial. "Moon Dial!"

The deep red glow of her power concentrated first in her eyes, then spread over her body, connecting with the Moon Dial and washing over it too. She could feel its power fading the core room in and out of existence. Focus. She had to get rid of the interlopers first. It would be a good way to test out the power of the Moon Dial after being without it for so long.

"Erase these two. Completely!"

And like that, they were gone, the last act of the girl in blue to grab her partner's hand.

At first, Kainatrol stared. Then she laughed.

"Hmhm... just like that? Hahaha..." She breathed in the red glowing power before letting it dissipate and returning the room to normal. "That's one thing out of the way. Now, if you'll all excuse me?" Her bright yellow eyes locked on to every person in the room as she picked up the Moon Dial. "You may go. I'll be taking this to the Boss."

As the others teleported out, Mekuramast watched as Kainatrol spun on her heel and walked out of the room through a wall that moved itself out of the way and resolidified once she was gone. His eyes caught something on the ground where the girls had been standing. He walked over and knelt down, examining a small snowglobe with a figure of a sad girl standing inside it. It must have dropped on the ground when Pretty Cure disappeared; a crack had formed on the side of the glass.

Elsewhere, unknown time. Sunday and Night opened their eyes to a series of blue and red circus tents on top of a hill, surrounded by people walking or taking horse-drawn carts down cobbled streets.

"We're not dead... but where are we?"

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 17: The World of the Past! The Pain of Two Sisters!

"That's what I want to know," Night said. "We should hide before somebody sees us, though. These outfits don't exactly fit in." She gestured at their Pretty Cure uniforms and then at the frills, lace, long skirts, and wide hats that the people around them were wearing. "It'll be trouble if-"

"Wait!" Sunday grabbed Night's wrist before she could leave. "Isn't it weird?"

Night sighed. "Everything about this is weird, but this isn't the time for-"

"No, you don't get it," Sunday said. "It's the fact that it's weird. Like you said, we stand out, so it'd be normal for people to notice us, right? But look." She indicated the crowds, all chatting and moving along, going about their business. "They don't even see us."

"Wha- ah!" Night stumbled, cut off, as a woman in a stuffy grey dress walked right through her. Regaining her footing and holding her head, she stopped to catch her breath.

"Night?" Sunday walked to her side, hand still on her wrist.

"That felt weird." Night shook her head and then stopped. Her eyes grew wider. "People can't see us, they're walking through us... we are dead, aren't we? We're ghosts."

"We can't be ghosts." Sunday let go and put her hands on her hips. "If the hero becomes a ghost, it'll be in the first episode, and we're probably way past that point by now."

Night groaned. "Stop being ridiculous. With the way you think sometimes, I don't know why I-"

"Why you what?"

"...never mind." She looked away.

"Come on!" Sunday walked into Night's field of vision, shocks running through her when she passed through people. "I know we're not dead."

"How can you be so sure?" Night kept her eyes down.

"Look at me, Yoko, okay?" The force of her partner's voice startled Night into looking up. Sunday, satisfied, continued. "I know we're not dead. Remember what she said before that light hit us? Remember what the Moon Dial does? It doesn't kill people. It erases people. It makes it so they never existed. If we don't exist, would we be here right now? Would we be thinking or seeing or doing stuff?" She grinned triumphantly. "Something obviously saved us!"

"You..." Night raised her head, looking at the enthusiastic grin her partner only sported when she was completely sure about something... usually something to do with what being a hero meant. "Maybe. But in that case, how do you explain all these people?"

"I don't know." Sunday sweatdropped, suddenly not so sure of herself. "Unless maybe they're ghosts..."

"Sunday?"

"What is it?"

Night's gaze was fixed on a poster, one of many on the lampposts and building walls leading up to the tents. "Look at that."

It looked fresh, but the style was as old as the clothes and buildings around them. The poster declared in large sepia type:

_**CHRONOS TRAVELLING SHOW**_

_New and improved, in its twenty-first year!_

_Featuring some of the best acts from around the world!_

Underneath was a large image of a man in a flashy suit, surrounded by smaller images of various performers. Night pointed at one circle in particular. A man with straight hair that fanned out past his shoulders - the image was in black and white, so it was impossible to tell what colour it was, but it was at least on the lighter side - wore a small top hat and carried a wand, smirking confidently at the viewer with pale eyes. At his side stood a smiling woman with shoulder-length dark hair, straight as a board.

"Mekuramast?" Sunday tilted her head. "But who's that other person? It sort of looks like Kainatrol if her hair were longer, but those two can't stand each other. He told me so himself."

"Shouldn't we investigate this?", Night said. "We might at least get a clue about getting back from here."

"Now you've got it!" Sunday smiled. "This is the kind of adventure that always gets you un-stuck!" She ran off towards the main tent before Night could even say anything, leaving the girl to sigh and shake her head.

"Am I turning into her now?"

Back in Gessou Village, Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia had long finished their own boxed lunches.

"Yoko's taking a while..." Yukari frowned. "I swear I saw Ami-sensei drive off a few minutes ago, but if Yoko's fixed the van, then where would she have gone after that?"

Mia looked at Yoko's and Starry's abandoned lunch boxes. "Kawada-san's taking a long time, too. Does she know where we are?"

Hoshi slammed her palms on the picnic table and stood up, cringing at the splinters and paint chips digging into her skin. "I got a bad feeling about this."

"Everyone ~susu!"

The three of them turned their heads to see Starry running around the corner of the Aki Guest Lodge, gasping for breath. Hoshi grabbed him when he got close enough and lifted him up.

"What are you doing out of the phones?", she asked. "Where's Nakayama?"

"Hoshi ~susu..." The little orange creature panted and flailed his little arms. "Asa and Yoko were taken away ~susu!"

"Wait, what?" Hoshi's head snapped back. "You mean, by those guys they're fighting?"

Starry nodded. "Help ~susu!"

Mia quivered in her seat. "But none of us have any special powers! What are we supposed to do?"

"Come on!" Yukari stood up. "Remember that communicator Asa brought with her? It's still set up in the room! We could at least get someone else to help!"

Three middle school girls and one fluffy creature bolted to their room in the Aki Guest Lodge, leaving their lunchboxes behind. The Communicator to Mars was set up on the desk, the Moon Piece standing beside it.

"Wasn't the Moon Piece_ in _the machine when we left?", Yukari mused.

"Forget it," Hoshi said. "Just turn the thing on."

Starry scrambled onto the desk, picked up the Moon Piece, hopped up to deposit it in the claw on the top, and landed back on the desk. The machine crackled to life with an image of the Temple of the Dial forming on the screen. Inside, turning to look at the screen, was a wrinkled old woman just a little taller than Starry himself. She hobbled over to look at it closer, using her staff as a walking stick.

"Elder ~susu!", Starry said. "There's an emergency ~susu!"

"I know," the Elder said, nodding her head. "Monsters in Kazahana City while Pretty Cure are away. I've already allowed Sunbi and Moonla to go to take care of it."

"Papa and Mama ~susu?" Starry blinked.

"That isn't-" Hoshi flinched, remembering her manners, and bowed. "Sorry, Elder, but that isn't the emergency we're talking about."

The Elder turned her head to examine the three girls behind Starry. "Are these three Pretty Cure? I had thought there would only be two."

"We're not Pretty Cure," Mia explained, slightly red-faced. "They're in trouble and they need help."

"Starry said they were kidnapped by the Etherium, and he ran to us for help," Yukari said. "But the three of us don't have any powers to get there."

"They've had three Moon Pieces taken away, too ~susu..." Starry looked down.

The Elder shook her head. "This is a problem. If the Etherium has the number of Moon Pieces that you say, along with whatever they gathered in the town today, I cannot leave the Garden of Days unguarded, yet Pretty Cure need help and the only people I would have called are already dealing with the problems in your hometown."

"But if you don't help Asa and Nakayama, what's the point?" Hoshi dug her short fingernails into her palms. "They're the ones who are supposed to help you, aren't they?"

The Elder frowned. "You are correct. Still... I'll help if it's absolutely needed, but the Garden of Days is vulnerable if your words are true. If there's anybody else at all with the ability to get you to the Etherium, please..."

The four of them in the guest lodge went silent. Suddenly, Yukari's eyes lit up.

"...I can think of one."

Kainatrol's short heels clacked on the floor in places where it bothered to be a floor, but made no sound in places where it wasn't anything at all. She reached a place where the wall was melting and dissolving, and placed the Moon Dial in front of it.

"Seven down and six to go, Boss."

The air rippled. "As expected with you in charge. You've done well enough."

She raised her head. "Well enough?"

"Yes," said the voice from nowhere. "Well enough that you have proven yourself worthy to carry on until the end of the plan. Now..."

"Now?", Kainatrol asked, sounding as though she really already knew.

"Erase me."

Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "You're sure this is the right way, of course."

"For twenty-six years, yes." The voice got quieter. "Nothing deserves to exist. Those here are not immune to this. Now, do as you were told."

"Absolutely." She and the Moon Dial became covered in a dark red aura that shot a beam out at the ripple in the air much as it had at the Cures. The warping wall behind it made a resounding crack and froze the way it was. When the light faded, she dusted off her gloved hands.

"That's done with." Kainatrol stepped back from the incomplete Moon Dial and looked at the empty air. "You had one misconception, _Lord Eiender_. Nothing deserves to exist... but _me_."

"So this is what you've been up to."

She swirled around to face Mekuramast, walking up to her and twirling his wand.

Night had protested the idea of sneaking into the travelling show without paying, but reluctantly agreed once Sunday pointed out that it would be impossible to pay, since nobody could see them anyway. Besides, the ring-stamped coins that people were exchanging looked unfamiliar, and the ticket stand didn't seem to take yen. Once in, the two of them wandered around the area and through the ring.

"We can't go backstage!" Night fumed. "Even if we're not going to get caught, it's completely wrong to just go around breaking the rules like that!"

"We're _investigating_," Sunday said. "Therefore, we can go wherever we want. Cops do it all the time, right?"

"You do watch too much TV," Night said, resigning herself to walking backstage.

"I didn't get that off TV." Sunday sweatdropped. "My next-door neighbours get the cops called on them once a week for their parties."

Night looked away awkwardly. She stopped as something caught her eye. "Sunday, look."

Sunday turned and caught what Night was looking at. The performers were milling around, preparing to file into a line. At the front stood the magician from the poster. To see him up close and in colour, it was definitely Mekuramast. His eye mask was gone, though, and his suit was the same sepia tone as the poster's print had been, rather than white.

"It must be like when Omemi-san transformed," Sunday said. "Remember? Her uniform turned white, and her glasses turned into a mask. His suit's not white yet, and he has no mask."

"Then we're in the past?", Night whispered, out of habit. "But, wait... didn't he say that his world was erased?"

"Yeah, and..." Sunday blinked. "Yeah, that would mean that the past didn't happen either! Then what's going on?"

"Shh," Night said.

"Huh? But no one can hear us anyway-"

"Still!" She turned her attention back to the not-yet-Mekuramast. The woman who had been in the picture walked up beside him in a plain blue dress, filing into the line like the other performers were doing.

"How is it?", she asked.

He snuck a look at the audience while the assistant taking attendance was distracted. "It looks like a full house tonight."

"Looks like Kainatrol, sounds like Kainatrol..." Sunday frowned. "But she doesn't look exactly like her."

"If she got a haircut and a change of clothes, she would," Night said. "That happens when we transform, so why shouldn't it be the same for her?"

"It works differently for bad guys," Sunday instructed. "So far, all we've seen are colour-swaps."

The woman smiled in a manner very unlike the one Sunday and Night were comparing her to. "That should cheer Thera up from whatever she's been thinking about lately."

"Thera?", Night whispered.

A voice came from the ring, and Pretty Cure watched as their quarries rolled a black cart onstage as the spotlight fell on them. "Thank you all very much for attending. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Chronos Travelling Show! For our first act, please welcome Kairos, the Master Magician, and his assistant, Kore!"

As the audience applauded, Sunday and Night looked at each other.

"We're no closer to finding a way out," Night said. "Let's just give up on investigating."

"No way!" Sunday shook her head. "I want to find out where we are and what's going on."

Night twitched. "If you haven't noticed, the Etherium has three of our four Moon Pieces, Kazahana City is under attack while we're on vacation, and everyone thinks we're dead! We need to get out!"

Sunday cringed only slightly, standing her ground. "Night... I know that. But if we don't have any idea what to do, we can't get out. This is the only thing I know." She took a deep breath and smiled. "Besides, have my ideas ever failed you before?"

"A few times," Night sighed. "All right. Let's look around."

"Sure!" Sunday gave a wider smile with relief. "First things first: let's find out who this Thera is."

"No, no, no way."

In the guest lodge room, Hoshi put her hands on her hips, trying to ignore the pain from her splinters.

"We are _not_ asking Omemi for help. You know what she's like. Do you want to be in her debt?"

Mia hesitated. "I know, but there isn't much of a choice, right? Besides, even she can be a good person. You've seen it!"

"Yeah, maybe once every million years." Hoshi rolled her eyes. "There's got to be a better way, even if we can't just go ourselves."

"I don't like the idea of being in debt to her either, but Mia's right," Yukari said. "She's got a good side. Besides, she's gotten nicer these days, hasn't she?"

"Still..."

"Didn't think you girls were the type to talk behind somebody's back."

Everyone in the room turned to the door. Omemi Emiru adjusted her glasses and leaned against the door frame. "What is it you need me for?"

"Forget it, Omemi," Hoshi said. "We're in enough trouble without having to be at your mercy for the next couple years."

"It's an emergency," Yukari cut in. "You know we can't ask the Elder for help."

"Oh, so it's that kind of thing." Emiru moved into the room and shut the door, making sure to listen for the click before she continued. "No one's listening. Go on."

"Omemi-san?" Mia shuffled her feet. "I hate to ask this of you, but you're the only one who can help. We, the four of us..." She gestured to herself, Hoshi, Yukari, and Starry. "We need to get into the Etherium. Even if we don't have any powers, we can't sit back and do nothing while Kawada-san and Nakayama-san need us."

As Emiru took this in, Hoshi stepped forward with a glare. "Just because we need you, don't get all full of yourself."

Emiru smirked and looked right into her eyes. "What do you think I'm going to do, eat you? Abilities aside, I'm just an ordinary girl."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Hoshi said. "The fact that you're an ordinary girl. I know what you do when somebody needs you, and I know what you do to make people need you. Like, say, bribing someone with a chance to talk to the person she likes in exchange for blackmail on his sister. Or how about the reason you got those powers of yours in the first place?"

"Hoshi!"

"Kondou-san!"

"Hoshi ~susu..."

Hoshi ignored her three companions. "So here are the terms. No messing around with us. We make you feel needed again. Got it?"

"You're so crude, Kondou," Emiru said, her glasses gleaming. "But other than that, the way you're acting is very familiar."

Starry looked up at her from the desk. "Are you going to take us there ~susu?"

Emiru took her glasses off and stared through them. They shone and twisted into a different shape. When they cast off their light, they had become a black eye mask with dark blue-green stones at the top corners.

"Black ~susu?" Starry blinked. "Wasn't it white like the others before ~susu?"

Light washed over Emiru's uniform, and it too turned black, though her bow, her shoes, and the stripes on her skirt turned dark teal. She put on her mask and nodded.

"It just happened on its own. I call it Reverse Form," she said. "The clothes turning black instead of white, I mean. Ladies and orange thing, allow me to introduce myself. 'Emiru' is fine, but 'Millusion' works just as well. Let's get going, shall we?"

Mia slowly smiled. "Omemi-san..."

Millusion concentrated, making a dark blue-green teleportation circle appear below their feet. "Kawada and Nakayama are in trouble, you said. I don't want to owe them forever, now, do I?"

"And you were the one who said I was lying the whole time." Mekuramast spun his wand as he approached. "You've got some nerve."

"I wasn't lying," Kainatrol said, bending her riding crop in her hands. "Just omitting key facts. Like I was saying the entire time, I was only doing what he wanted me to do."

"I don't doubt that there's some truth to that," Mekuramast shot back, "but forgive me if I don't believe you didn't have a hand in that."

"What do you care that I erased the Boss?" She walked closer. "He wanted it, you know. You saw him ask for that himself. 'Nothing deserves to exist' - that's why he got rid of his body. The old Pretty Cure fed him some speech about how 'nothing' meant him, too."

He didn't move. "And you landed on that like a hungry hawk, didn't you? He probably didn't decide to erase himself without your input. You're that kind of person."

"You doubt me?"

"You're the one who likes leading people on so much that she manifested a mind control ability," he said. "If anything, this just proves how self-centered you are."

"Touche." She smirked and let the riding crop snap back to its straight position. "From the one who's so attached to the past that his ability is his old job. Am I wrong?"

Mekuramast stopped spinning his wand. "Maybe I am after all. There's no harm in saying it here."

"Oh?"

He nodded. "There's nothing and nobody here. I have nothing to turn into a Hidoinaa. You have no civilians to brainwash. It's one-on-one. Something you never get into if you can help it. You always watch from the sidelines and never do anything yourself."

"Tch." Kainatrol smacked her hand with the riding crop and began to circle him. "Other than erasing people and places from time, do you know what else the Moon Dial does?"

Mekuramast jumped back and shot out his arm, sending a scarf whip flying from his sleeve. Kainatrol put out her own hand, knocking the scarves carelessly away with a glowing red shield that dissipated as soon as it came.

"It makes the user stronger."

Sunday walked between the carts hidden at the side of the tent display, wide-eyed and searching for clues. Night tagged along reluctantly behind her.

"Any sign of them yet?"

"Nope... Hey, wait!" Sunday pointed at one of the carts. A sign stuck out of the ground beside it on a flimsy stake, reading: Kore, Thera. "That's got to be theirs!"

"I still have a bad feeling about this," Night sighed as they approached the cart. A piece of fabric attached to the top was rolled up, exposing the inside. Upon a pile of rags and staring at a poster of a tropical island glued to the walls sat a young woman with shoulder-length dark red hair and yellow eyes.

"Her again?" Sunday blinked. "Wait, she can't duplicate herself, can she? That's the other guys."

Night watched as the redhead sighed and shook her head, taping another poster for the travelling show over the one of the island. "But if Kore's on stage, then is this...?"

"Thera!"

Sunday and Night turned around and stepped aside as a tall, red-haired man in a flashy suit marched over to the cart. The young woman inside spared another glance at the travelling show poster to make sure that it was covering the other one, then turned to look at the man.

"Yes?", she asked. The Cures blinked at the same time - this one had Kainatrol's exact voice, too.

"Quit daydreaming around and get ready, Thera," said the man. "Your act's coming up."

"Yes, Father," Thera said, trying to keep the acid out of her voice. "I'll be backstage in a minute."

"As long as you are," he said, turning around and walking away. "Your twin sister's got more sense than you. She at least puts the show first."

Sunday held her head. "Twins? Magical duplicates I could buy, but twins? That's only in soap operas!"

"Yes," Night deadpanned. "Obviously, Takashi and I are living in a soap opera. The next thing you know, I'll be married to five different people because I think four of them are dead."

"That's different," Sunday said, red-faced and without much force behind her statement. "Wait, you watch soap operas?"

"My _mom_ watches soap operas," Night said. "Although they're a little less ridiculous than what happens back home these days..."

Thera walked between them, a twist of anger on her face as she made her way to the main tent, and they stepped out of the way out of habit. Night looked away.

"Night?" Sunday walked up to her. "What's wrong? You've been acting weird all day."

"Sorry." Night shook her head. "I just..."

The scene around them faded in and out. Sunday frowned. "I know this is serious, and I know you're upset about something. You can tell me what it is, okay?" She flinched. "I mean, you don't have to say it right now, but..."

The world around them was losing its colour, like it had slowly gained it when they first arrived. Night's eyes lit up. "Hold on!" She grabbed Sunday's hand again as the world faded from view. They were pulled backwards, the world's image shrinking, until they were back in the void with an image of a clock in front of them.

"What just happened?", Sunday asked.

"What was _any_ of that?" Night shook her head. "Either way, we need to get back to where we were, but..."

They looked around the area as they floated through the air. Whiteness everywhere, but, unlike the area they'd seen before, there was no sign of there being a room or even walls. Nothing but large clocks, suspended in midair, passing around.

"These must be all the other worlds they erased," Sunday said. "But I thought there'd be nothing left of them, so..."

"They're echoes."

"What?" Sunday looked at Night - no, it wasn't her voice. "Who's talking?"

"Talking?" Night raised an eyebrow.

"Someone definitely was-" Sunday stopped and looked down. Her hand was brushing past another clock. She pulled it away, and the noise stopped. "Hey, Night. There's something in here."

"Something?" Night, still holding onto Sunday with one hand, pushed off empty air with her legs and floated over to examine the clock. They looked at each other and hesitantly touched the clock. It pulled them into... nothing, it looked like, at first. The surroundings were the same as the outside: a white expanse with clocks floating around. Their only clue that they had actually entered the clock was the presence of two figures who didn't seem to notice they were there. Two girls in outfits like theirs.

"Echoes? What do you mean by that?" The one who said that had fluffy pink hair, tied into two pigtails with red heart-decorated bows. Her uniform was constructed a lot like Sunday's, with the frilly underskirt and layered shoulders, but it was pink like her hair, with yellow accents and a white bow at the front. She wore some sort of necklace and fidgeted with it with one hand.

The other girl, one with a lavender dress and long, flowing hair so purple it looked black, closed her eyes and lifted a finger as if giving a lecture. "By 'echo', I mean an impression left of what used to exist, but doesn't. Of course, such a thing hasn't been proven to exist. If it had, the Etherium would have done its best to destroy them, and in doing so, would have destroyed itself." She gestured towards the various clocks. "These are echoes. They're sort of like memories replaying. Most of them are of the worlds before they were destroyed, but some of them show things that happened afterward. I can't explain it with science."

"Wait... That girl, the one with the pigtails. Doesn't she look like Mia?" Sunday floated closer, dragging Night along with her. "Think it's her?"

"That's not Ogata-san!" Night sighed. "Why would she be here? That's..." She looked closer as they approached, and her eyes widened. "Sunday. Look at that necklace she's holding."

The pink-haired girl moved her hand for a second, giving a clear view of the necklace. It was a small, pearlescent heart on a gold chain.

"That's Dawn's necklace, isn't it?", Sunday asked. "Why does she have it?"

"Shh!"

The pink-haired girl shook her head and slipped the necklace back under her uniform. "Do you think we'll find something here, Dusk?"

"Absolutely!" The girl called Dusk gave the thumbs up and a bright smile. "If not information, then maybe some kind of energy that we could use to defeat them!"

"...I hope you're right," the other girl sighed. "Let's go."

"Dawn..." Dusk frowned. "Don't worry about-" The world - no, echo - around them faded out.

"Don't worry about... what?" Night rubbed her head as they ended up in front of the clock again. "What were they worried about?"

"Wait, if that was Dawn..." Sunday looked at Night. "Didn't you tell me that Dawn said she was a Pretty Cure once? That must have been her and Cure Dusk when they were our age!"

"So they were here too," Night mused. "Then it is possible to get out of here."

"Let's go back to the other one." Sunday pushed off of an imaginary wall and started to drag Night in the direction of the previous echo.

"What do you think we'll find there?" Night followed along, kicking her legs a little as she floated.

Sunday reached out to touch the clock and be sucked back into the Garden of Rings. "The truth."

"They're not dead."

Binbeat looked up from playing the organ. "Who's not dead?"

Mireyes swivelled her head to scan the empty room - Binbeat always found it weird that she could see with her eyes covered - and, finding no one but the two of them, lowered her voice. "Pretty Cure. Somehow, Kainatrol failed to erase them."

"What, really?" Binbeat hopped up onto the keys, releasing an awful mishmash of chords. "But Kainatrol zapped 'em like nothing! We all saw it! How do you not get erased after that?"

"Future Sight hasn't told me how they were protected," Mireyes said, levitating her crystal ball between her hands. "Don't sit on the organ, Binbeat."

"Aww, man." He got up and crossed his arms. "What are we gonna do about it?"

Mireyes looked into the crystal ball. "At the moment, nothing. Circumstances being what they are, it would be best to focus on other things. Don't stand on the bench, Binbeat."

Binbeat made a face and hopped off the organ bench. "Like what?"

"The matter of intruders," she said, an image flashing into her mind of one girl in a black colour-swapped Etherium outfit, three regular schoolgirls, and one little orange creature teleporting into the core room. "Or, if you would prefer, the Hidoinaa you unleashed upon Kazahana City when you thought I wouldn't notice."

"Geez," he grumbled. "Do you have eyes in the back of your head?"

The old woman paused for a moment and laughed. "Perhaps."


	19. Moonlit Confessions!

_My name used to be Allegro._

It was raining. A blond young boy in a rumpled school uniform - the old-fashioned kind, with dress pants, a dress shirt, and a grey knitted vest - ran through the muddy streets of a run-down neighbourhood built from wood and bricks. He gasped for breath, splashing in every puddle he came past.

_But that world sucked, so who cares? The only one around for me was my sister._

"Hurry up, big brother!" A girl, only a few years younger than he was and wearing a variation on his uniform with a skirt, turned around from a few steps in front of him. Her hair was the same blonde as his, but instead of green, her eyes were bright white. She stumbled but kept running, looking backwards. "They're going to catch up if you don't-"

The boy, Allegro, looked up. "Watch out!"

"Huh?" The girl smacked into a tall boy, about her brother's age, and fell into the mud. "Ngh..."

The tall boy smirked down at her. "Got ya."

_Even though I was older, she was always trying to take care of me._

The blond boy made a face, catching up to his fallen sister. "Move it, Coda. You do this every day."

The tall one shook his head. "I don't think so." He gestured behind them as more children in the same school uniforms ran to catch up and surround the two siblings. "You'd get too used to being left alone."

"We didn't do anything to you," the girl snapped. "Stop it already."

Coda skimmed his foot across the mud puddle, kicking muddy water up on the girl. "You still haven't learned your place, have you?"

_No one else in town liked us._

"Andante!" The blond boy tried to run to his sister, but was yanked back by a hand on his wrist. One of the schoolmates in the circle pulled him and pushed him down to the ground. He landed with a thud into another puddle, feeling the grit of mud in his mouth.

"Organ Boy and White-Eyes," Coda sneered. "Why do you even stick around here? Your mom never stuck around."

"She's _missing_," Andante spat, pulling herself up off the ground. "Father's going to find her, and then they're going to come back and you're all going to get it."

"I bet she ain't," called another child in the circle. "I bet she ran away on purpose."

"Bet she's dead," said another.

"That's why you're cursed," Coda said. "Until you figure that out and leave town, we're not going away!" He raised his fist and struck out at Andante.

"Andante!" Allegro tried to get up, but the other kids held him back.

Andante moved to the side just before Coda's fist hit her. She shot out her hand. There was a sudden flash of light, one that, had it come from anyone else, the bullies would swear up and down had just been lightning in the sky or a street lamp going out. Coda flew down the street, landing in another mud puddle and crashing into a garbage can that spilled its contents all over the sidewalk.

"N-no way!" The children let go of Allegro and backed away. As Andante turned around to face them, white eyes glowing against the street lamps' light, they scrambled out of sight.

Her brother just stared.

_After that day, weird things started to happen in town..._

Present day. Binbeat grumbled, hands in his pockets, and walked through a dissipating wall. Mireyes' words from a couple minutes before (as much as time mattered in the Etherium) were still playing through his mind. Pretty Cure, not erased? After Kainatrol had used the Moon Dial on them in front of everybody? Binbeat's head hurt.

He looked up and spotted five figures far away. The intruders? A green magic circle appeared beneath him, and he teleported to close the distance. Standing around were not the intruders but five identical white-haired teenage girls.

"Aww, man, it's just Tachimany," Binbeat said. "What're you guys doing?"

Tachimany shifted into the form of seven flower girls and shrugged in unison.

"We were just thinking-"

"-that something was wrong."

"When we lost the Moon Piece-"

"-at the teacher's house-"

"-Pretty Cure said-"

"-that they had three others."

"That means we missed one."

"Aww, man! So we gotta find it?" Binbeat made a face. "At least we'll know where one is. Anyway..." He thought. "Go back to Kazahana City. Maybe they left it there."

The little girls looked at each other, then back at Binbeat.

"Are you sure-"

"-that you're not only asking that-"

"-because you set Hidoinaa-"

"-on the park?"

"You just want them dealt with-"

"-before the Boss finds out-"

"-and you're scolded again."

"Does everybody know?" Binbeat flailed his arms. "Whatever! Just go deal with it! And turn into something else. You're gonna make me catch girl cooties."

Tachimany shrugged and turned into two businessmen. "We'll be back." A gold magic circle appeared underneath them, and they teleported into Kazahana City.

Binbeat rolled his eyes and floated through the Etherium.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 18: Moonlit Confessions! The End of the Vanishing Act!

As Sunday and Night touched the floating clock, the world inside - no, the echo, the recorded memories that were all that was left of that world - faded into view around them. The scene was different. Oh, the caravan and the striped tent were still there, but the signs looked somewhat off, the trees a different colour, the road made of dirt instead of stones. The carts were hidden behind the tent instead of at the side, and there were fewer of them.

"Are you sure this is the right world?", Night asked. "It looks a lot like it, but..."

"Of course it's the right world!" Sunday put her hands on her hips. "I knew where I was going!"

"Really?" Night sighed. "Let's just look around for a little while. As long as you're sure that finding out what happened here will help us get back home."

The setup of the tents was a little different, too, but mostly in regards to size; a lot of the periphery tents around the large red and blue one were gone. They phased through the wall like ghosts - "This is so cool." "I'll never get used to it..." - and walked through the fabric-lined halls to the same ring that they had seen Kairos and Kore perform their magic act in.

"Maybe it is the right world," Night admitted. "Still, what are we going to do now? Will it get us out?"

"I know it will," Sunday said with an emphatic nod. "But, more importantly, I want to know what's going on."

"More importantly?", Night snapped. "How is this more important?"

Sunday only flinched a little, mostly holding her ground and maintaining her serious look. "Because I know everything will be fine! Besides," she added, "this was your idea, anyway."

Night opened her mouth to say something, but stopped. Her face turned a little red and she began to walk backstage. "F-fine. Let's look around."

The backstage area looked sparser than before, with everything packed into boxes and easily-moved racks. Unlike before, where it was packed with performers waiting their turn and assistants bustling around, there were only two other people in the room: twin little girls with long, straight hair and matching dresses, poring over a poster unrolled on the floor.

"Where did you get this?", one asked.

"Shh, Kore!" The other held a finger to her lips and whispered. "Father will hear if you keep being so loud. I found it on the side of a building. Look."

Night cautiously walked over to see what the children were staring at. Sunday ran up with no sense of caution, but they didn't look up. Of course they didn't; this was just an image of something that had happened in the past in a world that wasn't around anymore. The poster was newer than they'd seen it last, with brighter colours and a few tears and thin spots from where the glue had attached the back to the wall. 'Enjoy the Majestic Islands!', it boasted, with an artist's rendition of a tropical beach underneath.

"That's the poster that was in Kore's and Thera's cart," Night mused. "So this is..."

"Them as kids, right?", Asa finished. "All this time, Kainatrol had a twin sister... It's kind of weird to think about."

Thera looked, wide-eyed, at the picture and started to smile. "Promise me something, okay?"

Kore tilted her head. "Promise you what?"

"That one day, we can go here," Thera said. "To that island! We can live just like princesses and have whatever we want. We could do whatever we wanted. Father wouldn't even be around to tell us what to do!"

Kore's jaw dropped. "Really? We could do that?"

"Of course!" Thera smiled. "It would be great-"

"Girls."

Thera and Kore gasped and turned around, pulling themselves to their feet. "Father!"

Sunday and Night stepped back out of habit and looked to see a red-haired man enter the backstage area. He looked somewhat younger, but still had his flashy suit and the same stern look on his face as he approached the girls.

"You should get ready for practice." He towered over his children and gave a disapproving look at the poster on the floor behind them. "What is that?"

Kore gulped. "That's..."

"I found it in the house," Thera lied confidently, gesturing to the empty audience seating section outside of the room. "Somebody in the audience must have dropped it."

"Hm." The man crossed his arms and frowned. "Go practice with the performers. Even if you are children, don't slack off."

"Harsh," Sunday winced.

"Shh," Yoko said, knowing full well that they couldn't be heard anyway.

The children's father turned around and walked towards the open flap of tent that was serving as a door. "Don't think about foolish things. People of our station, our background... we shouldn't dream to be anything but what we are." He stopped in the doorway without looking back. "What you are is the children of the ringmaster of the Chronos Travelling Show. You are members of this show, and you will perform in this show as if it is the only important thing in your lives."

"Yes, Father," the girls said, and, satisfied, he left the backstage area. Kore bit her lip. Thera balled her fists and glared at the end of the room.

The echo began to fade in and out again. Sunday looked over at Night, who was staring into space, head down.

"Night?"

"It's just like Ami-sensei's story," Night mumbled. "About the three families of Gessou Village, and the lovers who couldn't be together. Their parents were stopping them, too."

Sunday grabbed Night's hand just as the echo faded out.

Five figures moved through the void: three girls in blue school uniforms, one more in a black version of the same uniform, and a little orange creature with floppy ears and a sunburst symbol on his forehead.

"So we're here," Kondou Hoshi said, tensing up. "Now what?"

"Stick together and move cautiously, of course," Millusion said, adjusting her black eye mask so it glinted in the light from everywhere and nowhere. "Do you want to get caught?"

Hoshi shot a glare at her, something like 'you'd know about sneaking around, Omemi' on her lips, but said nothing.

"There's a lot of space to cover," Okamoto Yukari ventured, looking around at the white carved walls fading in and out. "Yoko and Asa said something about this place being made up of dead worlds."

"Erased worlds, actually ~susu," Starry explained, staying close to the group. "They used the Moon Dial to erase all the time that passed before these worlds were made, just so they could add to the void... or something like that ~susu," he trailed off.

Ogata Mia shuffled her feet. "But if there are whole worlds in here, we could be here for years! How are we even going to start?"

"We'll start around the core room," Millusion said. "There's more of a chance of being caught, of course, but it's unsafe if you get too far from there. It's the most stable area. Beyond that, it's just a void with nothing in it. Probably."

"Probably?", Hoshi snarked.

Millusion spared a glance at the side. "Do you honestly think I had the time to explore around, Kondou? You should really think before you speak."

"Yeah, yeah." Hoshi rolled her eyes.

"You guys are loud."

At once, they all turned around to see a young boy in a rumpled white and green school uniform levitating at the girls' eye level, bending his white eye mask this way and that in boredom.

"You again?", Hoshi asked.

"What's a little kid doing here?" Mia stepped back just the same.

"I'm not a little kid! I'm a hundred and four!" He pouted and put his mask back on. "And my name's Binbeat! Geez."

Yukari frowned. "I've seen you before. You were one of the people attacking the school."

Binbeat scratched his head. "Yeah, you're Pretty Cure's friend." He looked at the rest of the circle. "You're their pet-"

"I'm not a pet ~susu," Starry said.

Binbeat ignored him. "And you're their friend too. You're that person who was hiding in the shed," he said, pointing at Hoshi.

She just glared at him. "Can you shut up about that?"

He stuck out his tongue and moved along to Millusion. "You... I dunno you. You're probably that girl Kainatrol brought who left after, like, a day or something. How'd you get your uniform to be black?"

Millusion smirked. "Wouldn't you like to know?" Something told them that she didn't quite know herself.

Finally, the child looked at Mia and blinked. "You... You kinda look like Cure Dawn, except she's old now. Like, grownup old, not old lady old like Mireyes old. You're not old, so I dunno who you are either."

Mia deflated. "Is that a compliment or an insult?" She suddenly stood up straight. "Wait, who's Cure Dawn?"

"Does it matter?", Hoshi snapped. "We've been caught! That's more important!"

"Actually, old lady Mireyes already saw you in her crystal ball," Binbeat yawned, stretching his arms and legs out. "So I came looking for you. I dunno what I'm supposed to do, though. Kick you out?"

"Wait up," Yukari said. "What do you mean by not knowing?"

Binbeat shrugged. "The Boss hasn't talked to anyone but Kainatrol in months, and Kainatrol is a dumbface. She only sticks around 'cause her power's useful and the Boss likes her. Tachimany're busy with the monster thing, I dunno where Mekuramast went, and Mireyes sent me out here, so she's probably busy trying to figure out why Pretty Cure are still alive." He bobbed up and down in the air. "Besides, it's not like you guys could do anything. The Moon Dial has a bunch of Moon Pieces in it now. One... two..." He began to count to seven on his fingers.

"Hold it!" Hoshi lunged at Binbeat. Instinctively, he dropped to the ground and jumped back. Yukari put her arm out in front of the boy. Hoshi clenched her fists. "What do you mean, 'still alive'? What happened to them?"

Binbeat took a deep breath and looked up at Yukari. Assured that Hoshi wasn't going to attack, he continued. "Kainatrol tried erasing them with the Moon Dial and it didn't work. We all thought they were gone, but Mireyes said they're still alive and in some weird thing."

"How..." Starry shut his eyes and shook his head. "Never mind ~susu! Where are they ~susu?"

"I dunno!" Binbeat put his hands on his hips. "Not so loud, okay? The old lady didn't want anyone else to know!" He flashed back to Mireyes telling him about Pretty Cure's survival, how she looked around the room with her eyes covered and lowered her voice. "I dunno why, but she didn't. She told me not to tell Kainatrol and them about this other Moon Piece we were trying to find, too, back when we were picking 'em up earlier today."

Millusion stepped forward and leaned over to face the child. "Well, then. If you help us find them, we won't tell anyone about it, and we won't tell about Kawada and Nakayama surviving this Moon Dial incident, either." She straightened up. "Do we have a deal?"

"Typical Omemi," Hoshi muttered.

"Shh," Mia whispered.

Binbeat thought about this. "I want a chocolate bar, too."

Millusion adjusted her eye mask. "That can be arranged. Now, tell us everything you know."

Yukari sighed. "You're a little scary, you know that?"

Millusion shrugged. "What would you expect me to do?"

A golden magic circle appeared for a second in the garbage-laden grass of Sapphire Park, and the two businessmen, Tachimany, teleported in. They didn't even need to hide. The only people left in the area were a handful of news reporters, all focusing on the green-eyed tree monsters rampaging around.

What a mess. Tachimany shook their heads and shifted into the form of eleven cloaked figures with golden daggers in their hands. They crouched behind a towering bush, watching the tree.

The radio reporter held on tightly to her microphone and recorder, taking cover behind a tree. "Once again, we bring you live news from the town of Kazahana City, where rumours of monsters persisted beginning twenty-six years ago. They were decried as fake when it happened, but recent events suggest that the rumours were true, as monsters have appeared in this town once again- ah!"

"Hidoinaaa!"

The limb of a tree monster came swooping down at her.

Tachimany watched.

Dark blue lights flashed in the air past them.

At once, the Hidoinaa was impaled with dark blue glowing knives.

"What?" Tachimany's eleven bodies shot up and looked around.

"Hello," came a voice behind them. At once, some of the bodies turned around to face its owner. It was a man in a black suit with a dark blue dress shirt. His hair was a darker blue than that, and the way he frowned, serious under his black eye mask, it was clear. They knew him.

"Devance!" All of Tachimany tensed up, though only one spoke at a time.

The man nodded with a frown. "You haven't changed a bit, Tachimany."

In response, they shifted back into the form of seven little flower girls and began to circle him.

"Unlike some other people-"

"-we are always changing."

"You've changed too."

"Your uniform is black-"

"-and you're much older."

"It's surprising-"

"-that you can still fight."

Devance looked past Tachimany and through the budding bush, towards the reporter and the monster she'd barely been rescued from. "I'm not the only one."

"What do you-"

"-mean by that?" A few of the bodies looked back, though others kept their eyes firmly set on the man before them.

From another direction, a beam of light impaled the same tree monster they'd been watching before. It burst into flames. Tachimany's eyes followed the beam to its origin.

Holding out their hands, magic discharged from them, were two adult women.

When the echo faded out, Sunday and Night were standing, floating in the clock-littered void. Sunday held onto Night's hand.

Night didn't look at her partner. "Haven't we been through this before?"

Sunday drifted closer. "Is this what you were sad about earlier? With the story about the village founders' children? I..."

Night yanked her hand away and spun backwards, still not totally facing Sunday. "It's... just not something you would understand, all right?"

"I do understand it!"

Night's eyes widened, her mouth opening a bit. "What?"

Sunday moved forward, starting to close the distance between herself and Night. "I see the way the world is, Yoko. I see it just the same as everybody else does. Hoshi, trying to protect me by telling me I should act normal. Mia, when we first met her - how she didn't want to talk to me because people would associate her with me. Everyone at school, how they were talking behind my back, and how they would start to avoid people just for being friends with me."

Night stayed where she was, but slowly looked up at her partner. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words caught just at the end of her throat.

Sunday looked her in the eyes, blue pushing down on grey, and held out her hands. "I might have decided that I still just want to be myself... but that doesn't mean it's the easiest thing in the world."

Night hesitated. She looked at Sunday, arms open, hands outstretched and floating in front of her. Slowly, her own hand reached out, hesitated, and latched onto Sunday's.

A warm orange glow surrounded their hands.

"I told you all I know," Binbeat complained. "Old lady Mireyes didn't even know how they survived. How am I supposed to know where they are?"

Hoshi facepalmed. "That just makes you completely useless. We're trying to help find our friends!"

Binbeat stuck out his tongue. "Geez. I said I was gonna help. At least you know they're not dead."

"Assuming you're telling the truth," Millusion said with a gleam of her eye mask.

"I am too telling the truth!" Binbeat hovered into the air. "I'm gonna prove it, too! You guys, get outta the way."

"Um, what do you-" Mia began.

"Come on, do what he says!" Yukari pulled Mia and Starry out from in front of Binbeat. With a flash of light and a glowing green magic circle, a white organ and its bench rose up from nowhere. Binbeat floated down to sit on the bench.

"The organ ~susu!", Starry gasped from Yukari's arms.

"Calm down!", Binbeat whined. "I'm not gonna use Musical Ride. I got another song."

"Another song?", Mia asked.

"Yeah!" He grinned. "My little sister found the sheet music in Mom's stuff and taught it to me. It's called 'Hearts'... uh, 'Heart'... y'know, I forget what it's called. But it'll do somethin' weird."

"What are you-"

"Shh," Yukari whispered. "Hoshi, this might be important."

Hoshi sighed. "...fine. Just try it. It's better than nothing."

"Oh, letting things slide now, Kondou-san?" Millusion laughed. "That's really not like you."

"Shove it, Omemi."

"Come on, play," Mia said. Binbeat nodded and put his hands to the keys.

The sound that began to pour out of the organ's pipes wasn't the clashing sound of Musical Ride, and nothing was exploding; nor was it the cacophony of a child pounding on the organ out of boredom to annoy the people around him. It wasn't soft, but it was a strong sort of slow, feeling calm and determined. Seeing this impatient child who had spent a time longer than the average human lifespan in the Etherium... maybe that accounted for the strange feeling arising in the hearts of the five others standing there. The boy closed his eyes and began to sing.

_"I don't know where you are_

_But tell me if you're gone_

_As we you left behind_

_Continue living on_

_Are you here?"_

The green magic circle reappeared underneath the organ, and, like when he used his other ability, Binbeat's hands began to glow in the same colour.

Allegro and Andante's home had seen better days. With only children around, and only the younger responsible enough to do chores without being nagged, the small house was usually a dusty mess, and that didn't take into account the rocks tossed through windows and rude graffiti scrawled on the walls of the house. The words on the walls had started to change after the incident in the streets: the faded usual RATS and YOUR MOTHER'S DEAD were now accompanied by freshly-painted accusations of FREAKS and WHITE-EYED DEMON CHILD. Written right above the porch, in paint neither of the siblings could wash out, was a big red label: CURSED FAMILY.

Allegro kicked his legs up on the bench of the family's old, scratched organ. "Hey, Andante?"

Andante looked up. Her blank white eyes might have scared the rest of the village, but on his sister, Allegro was used to them. "What is it, big brother?"

"You think we really are cursed?"

Andante frowned. "Certainly not," she said in her most grown-up voice. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

Allegro hopped off the bench. "But weird things are already happening. You know, like how you beat up Coda and scared off him and his buddies. And- and how people are acting weird, coming after you! And how you keep on looking at the circus that came to town..."

"The Etherium," she mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Never mind," Andante said. "They're bad guys. Don't worry about them. I just wish they were the only reason people were coming after me. It's better than the whole town hating us already."

Allegro scratched his head. "You're weird, sis."

"I know." Andante sighed. "Big brother?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you... can you play the song again?" She stood on her toes and pointed up at the sheet music on the organ. "That song's magic. I know it is. And... it's the only thing we've got to see if Mom and Dad are still..."

Allegro grinned. "'Course I can! I'm awesome!" He took a deep breath and began to play along on the keys. The sheet music was in front of him, but he didn't even need to look at it. As Andante sang along with him, a warm light filled the room.

_I don't know where you are_

_But tell me if you're gone_

_As we you left behind_

_Continue living on_

_Are you here?_

_The future cannot die_

_The past will fall apart_

_O song, bring me the truth_

_O path, connect our hearts_

_Bring you here..._

"They're both still out there." He nodded, lifting his hands off the keys. "They're... I dunno where they are."

Andante closed her eyes. "I wish I could see it."

Allegro swung his legs back around to face his sister. "Heh, bet you'd do a better job than me. I'm not good at the weird seeing thing."

Andante laughed a little. "But I can't play the organ like you can!"

"Anyone can!" Allegro pounded randomly on the keyboard. Andante only burst out laughing more at the awful noise.

That was only a week before Andante's fight concluded. The 'circus' run by a man called Eiender left town, and the Land of Tracks was safe. Allegro left with it. He'd hidden inside the supplies, leaving a note in front of the sheet music at home.

_You didn't want to come. I cant stay here anymore neether can you. Coda said he was gonna get the grownups to beet us up or kick us out of town cause he says your a wich. Run. -A_

Andante climbed up onto the bench, threw the note onto the scuffed and scratched-up floorboards, and held the sheet music tightly to herself.

Present day, Etherium. Binbeat continued to play and sing, green light spreading. The five around him began to feel something as the glow spread through each of them, not green, nor the cold white of the Etherium, but a warm white that set off the nothingness around them.

Flashes appeared in their minds. Sunday and Night moving through the echo of the Garden of Rings, then stepping out of it. Talking. Sunday holding Night's hands. Orange light.

"What exactly is this doing?", Millusion asked.

"It feels like that time at the school," Hoshi said.

"Is this... energy?" Mia gaped at the aura leaving her.

"It feels like the Unison Second!" Yukari smiled. "Everyone, focus on those two!"

"Susu..." Starry held tightly onto Yukari's arm.

The auras of light shot off of the four girls and one tiny creature, merging into a large beam of light that shot straight off to the side.

Binbeat kept singing.

The images changed.

The white space with nothing but floating clocks around Sunday and Night began to fill. A stretch of a street would appear for a second, or a boat on the water, or a castle floating by itself in the sky.

"What now?", Night asked.

"Don't ask me," Sunday said, "but I think this is probably a good thing."

"Probably!"

The beam of light shot through the images, and they grew wider and spread out, turning the void into a patchwork of different pieces of worlds. The light hit Sunday and Night head on and began to fold over them.

"This is..." Night began.

Sunday gave a wide smile as the energy flowed into the both of them. "Let's do it!"

Night hesitated, took a breath, and nodded. "All right."

Around them, blue fire appeared and burned brighter until it too became bright white. Sunday and Night held each other's inside hands and put their outside hands to the side.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"Despite the passage of time..."

"...our feelings will endure forever!"

"Pretty Cure Unison Second!"

They flew. Not up. Forward. As the energy pillar began to dissolve, as they flew past pieces of worlds that were supposed to have been erased, they flew along the beam to its source. Further. Further. Through the void they'd been floating in until they touched the Garden of Rings' fragment by accident and woke up. Through the nothingness that was dangerous to touch. Through the walls that were there and then weren't and then were again.

They landed in front of four girls, one holding an orange creature with a sun on his head, and a boy who finished his song, dispelled the green glow around his hands and the organ he was playing on, and opened his eyes.

"..."

"..."

"What's going on?"

Flash.

Mekuramast surveyed the Etherium's core room behind his mask before drawing out his scarf whip and striking out at Kainatrol. Hand still on the Moon Dial, she put up a round shield of red light and deflected it without a word. The shield disappeared just as quickly as it showed up. He skidded back across the polished white floor, narrowly avoiding the gaps as they faded in and out.

He started to pull his head up. Kainatrol's eyes locked onto the corner of his eye, not guarded by his mask, as he looked to the side at her. Her eyes gave off a red light, and he slowly stood up, his own eyes glazed over.

"Give up," she smirked. "With the Moon Dial's power, even you can't stand up to me."

His body didn't move. The weapons he'd drawn, scarf-whip and wand, were in his hands, but he wasn't using them. Kainatrol's hand lay on the incomplete Moon Dial, her face twisting into a horrible smile.

Mekuramast's posture shifted as he stood under her control. Something moved - the tiny snow globe he'd picked up pushed out of his pocket and fell to the floor. This time, the resulting crack shattered the glass of the globe. Pieces of glass and water and glitter covered a small spot on the shifting floor, surrounding the image of a sad girl.

No.

The statue of a sad girl.

A statue, or at least a reasonable facsimile of a statue crafted from paper mache. Kairos grinned proudly as he unveiled it, comparing his assistant to her mirror image in the statue.

"What do you think?", he asked.

"It's... me?" Kore stared at it.

He nodded. "And to top it off, it's a kore, like your name. Well," he added with a nervous laugh, "it's not a real one. I don't think this show has the budget to bring in a real ancient statue. Besides, this fake one looks more like you. It'll be perfect for the vanishing act we've been working on."

Kore looked left and right around the empty backstage and sighed. "I wish I could pull a vanishing act."

"What's wrong?"

"It's not important." The red-haired woman shook her head. "It's not something I should be thinking about."

"It's the boss, isn't it?" Kairos looked at her. "Your father."

"Sort of." Kore took a deep breath and looked up at him. "I... well, Thera and I never wanted to be here. We always wanted to escape. You probably can't understand, because you chose to be in the show, but for us, it was never a question. I don't have the money to leave, and people like us, well... we have our place. It's easier to just give up and be what Father wants - what everyone wants."

Kairos put a hand on Kore's shoulder. "We could go, you know."

She looked up. "We could? You mean, the two of us?"

Nod. "I know how you feel. I don't think there's anyone who would call me a brave person." He looked at her. "But with you around, I think I could stand up to anyone and do anything."

Something rustled behind the curtain.

_...No._

He started to twitch at the sides. He couldn't see it, but he felt something revive inside of him and began to push out the energy controlling him. Life began to return to his eyes.

"What?" Kainatrol held her head with both hands. No longer touching the incomplete Moon Dial, her power dropped. Mekuramast forced the mind control out of his head and glared behind the protective lenses of his eye mask.

"I won't let you do whatever you want anymore." He stepped over the broken snow globe with a glare. "Now get out."

Kainatrol raised her head, shaking, and grasped the edge of the Moon Dial in one hand. Her eyes snapped between Mekuramast and the snow globe, the image fading from a sad girl in glittery snow to a statue. A statue that looked just like her. A statue of her sister. Kore. Kore and Thera, the sisters. One had given up. One let the anger boil up inside of her. Then the first agreed to leave again, without her, leave her behind because she could cope, she thought she could manage with the tyrannical man who had raised them now bereft of his magic act and the more complacent of his children.

No.

No. No. No.

Kainatrol's glare narrowed and twisted, her grip closing tightly around the Moon Dial.

"You went along with it all! Even if it were just to stay alive, you helped to destroy those worlds and all of those lives, so you can't tell me that I'm a monster! What are you even here for?" A red aura arose around her, her yellow eyes feeling like they were burning. "Always trying to one-up me! Holding information from me! You invented Hidoinaa _just_ to make my Tamer's Chain less of an asset! Why didn't you just give up and _die!"_

Mekuramast moved forward, whipping his string of scarves back up his sleeve. A shadow grew behind him for the first time in a void of only light.

"For someone who hates everyone, you certainly care a lot about other people's approval."

Kainatrol's grip tightened in her other hand, too, around the handle of her riding crop. "I should have killed you with her!"

Mekuramast pointed his black magician's wand at her. "You didn't kill her. You erased her. And..." He looked Kainatrol in the eyes, protected by the mask in front of them. A blue magic circle drew itself under him, and black spread over his crisp white suit. Not noticing or not caring, Mekuramast returned the smirk that Kainatrol had regarded him with for over one hundred fifty years. "You didn't do a very good job."

Blue light enveloped him, and he disappeared. Kainatrol seethed at the spot in the shifting room where he'd been standing. Slowly, she let go of the side of the Moon Dial and let her riding crop drop to the floor.

She stood there, taking it all in.

Binbeat had left the girls alone, not wanting to get in trouble, and, thanks to Millusion's teleportation, returning to Gessou Village had been relatively simple. Apparently, they hadn't been gone all that long - something about how time didn't work quite right in the Etherium - but they'd certainly been gone long enough for their abandoned lunchboxes to have been raided by animals. Hoshi, Yukari, Starry, and Mia had eaten enough to not be too bothered, but Yoko hadn't had that much, and Asa hadn't had anything to eat at all. Emiru, for her part, had had a perfectly good lunch beforehand and saw fit not to involve herself in the lunchbox woes of others.

After Ami-sensei returned from town with news that the monsters had been dispelled and everyone was okay, the outing resumed as normal. The class regrouped for a meeting and an educational lecture that Asa slept through, stayed for supper (generously provided by the Aki Guest Lodge, and after starving through lunch, Asa and Yoko didn't even care how bad it was), and, for the most part, returned to their rooms.

Yoko stepped out of the guest lodge and wandered through the tourist village, staying to the moonlit main roads. She kept walking, following the sound of the waterfall, until she made it to the lake at the edge of the village.

"Gessou Lake..." She approached the thick tree standing up above the mist and reached out a hand to touch it.

"I knew I'd find you here!"

"Wha-" Yoko spun around and blinked at the girl standing and waving at her from a few steps away. "Asa? What are you doing out here?"

"Looking for you." Asa smiled and gave a shrug. "Just to make sure you hadn't been abducted by aliens or anything like that."

Yoko sighed and leaned against the tree. "I see things are back to normal for you."

"Not for you?"

"How could they be?" Yoko shook her head. "We could have died back there. We were _supposed _to die back there. Even if we didn't, we could have been stuck in that empty space forever."

"But we didn't." Asa made her way over to the tree and sat down under it, facing the lake. "That's proof of something, right?"

"Proof of what?"

"Who knows?" Asa craned her neck back to look at Yoko. "But we're going to win in the end, even if they took most of our Moon Pieces. I know that for sure."

Yoko slowly pulled herself away from the tree, taking care to unhook the pieces of her hair that had become stuck in the tree bark. "You never change, do you, Kawada Asa?"

"I do so!" Asa made a face. "A little."

"How so?" Yoko picked a piece of bark out of her hair.

Asa looked back at the lake and rubbed her neck. "Well, for one thing... I used to be scared, but now I'm glad I met you."

Yoko's face turned pink. She slowly sat down beside Asa, breathing in the mist that was rising above the lake. The two of them didn't talk for a moment.

"Ami-sensei's story about the lovers who died under this tree...", Yoko began.

Asa shook her head. "They might have lived, remember? Nobody knows for sure."

Yoko bit her lip. "...Mhm."

Slowly, she put her hand over top of Asa's. They sat there for a while, looking up at the moon.


	20. We Have to Do What?

_We once had one body, but we never had one mind._

"Now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the act you've all been waiting for - the man with thirteen voices inside his head, the Amazing One-Person Crowd!"

As the spotlight came on and the audience clapped, the figure on the stage sighed under his (their) breath.

_In our original world, we would pretend it was only an act. That kept us safe._

He (they) surveyed the audience in the house. This was a wooden stage inside an actual building, not like the easily dismantled and constantly moving tents and rings of the Chronos Show. Actually, this building predated the Chronos Travelling Show by a good fifty years at least, and the show going on was taking place at least thirty years before the destruction of the Garden of Rings.

Not that time mattered all too much, nor were the many people in one body even aware at the time of any other worlds but their own, this one they were in - the Field of Words.

The show began.

_Truth for security. What a trade._

One by one, the different personalities emerged. The first, the little boy. The second, the businessman. The third, the old woman. Fourth, the doctor. Fifth, the teenage girl. Sixth, the lumberjack. Seventh, the little flower girl. Eighth, the mystic. Ninth, the shrine maiden. Tenth, the cat, who only spoke in meows and climbed all over the stage on four legs. (The audience loved it.) Eleventh, the honourable assassin. Twelfth, the serious knight. Thirteenth... thirteenth, the final one, who would scream and rant at the pain of the world, who would threaten everything that got in the way. The thirteenth made the audience shift and murmur, so that one was only brought out for small bits of time at best.

They would switch effortlessly, as if there were a shift taking place right inside the actor's head, as if he was becoming the new person, if not on the outside, definitely on the inside.

That, only they knew, was exactly what was going on.

_But in the end, was it really worth it?_

The performance went as it usually did. The one body with thirteen minds caught flowers and bowed to the crowd. Without a word, he (they) walked offstage, down the steps, past everyone who tried to wave hello or congratulations, and into his (their) dressing room.

They locked the door, slumped to the floor, and sighed.

_It's much better to be free._

Present day. Not that "present day" meant much when they stood outside of time - or did it? The Etherium did function enough in time for time to pass around and through it, even if no one inside could feel the effects. Besides, Tachimany had been noticing things changing in the Etherium ever since they and the others had started to search Kazahana City for the Moon Pieces. Too much was fading away, as if their mission to erase everything had turned in upon themselves.

They stood in the core room with the ones who were still left in the Etherium. Mireyes and Binbeat stood together by their side, and Kainatrol, bending her riding crop back and forth, paced in front of the rest of the group.

"It has been a number of days now, at least in the time of the Land of Legends, and this news does need to be brought to light. Our esteemed leader has left us," she said. "Eiender, the Ruler of Time, has elected of his own will to be erased as we are to erase the rest of existence, and we've gained enough pieces of the Moon Dial that he was able to make this a reality."

Tachimany in their eleven-bodied assassin form eyed Kainatrol, but even taking a form that could detect anything they were looking for, they saw someone who wasn't lying. Quite the opposite, they saw someone so confident in her own truth that Eiender's apparent wish to erase himself was not only what actually happened, it was something that she counted on truly being so. Some of their bodies moved around as they listened.

Kainatrol stopped to face the crowd of thirteen and pushed her eye mask up her nose. "Of the remaining agents here, Tachimany have the most seniority. After that, me. You will listen to them and we will work just like we did before. On that note, brand new Boss...es, have you any comments?"

Tachimany raised their eyebrows in unison. They shifted over to the form of five teenage girls, freeing up much more space, not that there was any lack of it to begin with.

"It's surprising that you're showing us the respect-"

"-of our preferred form of address, but-"

"-given the circumstances, it seems natural."

"We do have news-"

"-very important news."

"Oh?" Kainatrol turned her head off to the side. "What might that be? It doesn't concern the deserter, Mekuramast, now, does it?"

Tachimany shook their heads.

"Not Mekuramast, no-"

"-but certainly a deserter."

"Devance is active again."

"Accompanied by none other than-"

"-Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk."

Kainatrol froze and moved to face them again. "They're what!"

"They're back," said one Tachimany body. "In fact, we were just going to descend to Kazahana City and investigate the matter ourselves."

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 19: We Have To Do What? Money-Raising Adventure!

"Hey, which order are these displays supposed to go in? Should I arrange them by colour?"

"By general style would be good, but type of stone should also be a factor. Hey, Hoshi, you're doing okay, right?"

"Of course I'm doing okay! Any idiot can sweep the floor."

In Kazahana City, where it hadn't snowed naturally for years, when the clouds gathered over the town in March, that could only mean rain. Lots of it. The street vendors had packed up and moved inside, children zipped through puddles trying to figure out how they could produce the biggest splashes, and couples attached themselves to one another underneath umbrellas. Okamoto Yukari had gathered her friends together in her parents' souvenir shop to get out of the rain, and as it quite often was with Yukari, one thing had led to another.

"What are you _doing_, Asa!"

Kawada Asa looked over at the voice while standing on her tiptoes on the seat of a chair, transformation phone in one hand, Scan Card in the other. "I'm working!"

Nakayama Yoko twitched repeatedly and marched over to her side. "Get down from there right now. You're not working, you're just scanning everything for Moon Pieces!"

"That's working, too!", Asa retorted, wobbling as she swiped the card and scanned another necklace on a display dummy. The phone beeped another negative. "Working to save every world that ever existed! If Earth - I mean, the Land of Legends is gone, then so is the Okamoto family's store, so I'm doing my part to help out with this!"

"Are you insane?" Yoko pointed up at her. "You're not even thinking of your own safety! You're standing on your tiptoes on a chair, and you've already nearly fallen down at least three times! Get a ladder or a stepladder or something, and keep your feet flat and balanced! And work! We're supposed to be cleaning and setting up displays, not wasting time and injuring ourselves while making a bigger mess!"

"Yeah, but still..." Asa fumbled with the set of keys Yukari had passed around and opened a display case with a glimmering jewel necklace inside. It looked as expensive as its price tag, with a shining red heart-shaped gem held by a series of thin metal chains. She swiped the Scan Card and aimed her phone to scan the gem. The dial lit up just as Asa's foot slipped and her tenuous control of her balance gave out.

"Ah!"

"Asa-"

Yoko caught the other girl in her arms, bending her knees slightly for the impact. She looked down at Asa, face growing a little red at the other girl's shocked expression - and, for that matter, at Yukari, Hoshi, Mia, and even Starry, who had all stopped what they were doing to stare at the would-be disaster. Yoko coughed.

"See? You could have cracked your head open, not to mention damaged all the jewelry, and you know none of us could afford to replace any of it-"

"Yoko," Asa interrupted, staring at the screen of her transformation phone. "Look."

The dial had lit up in green. The screen read "RETRIEVAL: X".

"I don't believe this."

One good thing about a team consisting of two girls and one fluffy creature was that everybody knew what everybody else was talking about. Ever since revealing their knowledge to the others, Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia needed to be briefed on a lot of things, such as the many functions of the transformation phone, what a Moon Piece was, why it was a very bad thing that Asa and Yoko had recently lost all but one of theirs to the Etherium, and why they absolutely needed the remaining five that nobody had found yet. Only once all that was over were they able to explain the discovery proper...

"...and that necklace has a Moon Piece in it."

Mia stared at the necklace, as if she were inspecting every sparkle for a hint of magic. "There was something like that here? For how long?"

Yukari pulled up her glasses. "I think we've had it since about... halfway through second term."

"That's the same time that I came here with the Moon Pieces ~susu!" Starry's eyes lit up. "It makes perfect sense ~susu!"

Asa inclined her head to Yukari and poked her fingers together. "So, since there's a Moon Piece in that necklace, and we really, really need it-"

Yoko turned on Asa with a death glare. "Don't. Even. Ask."

Asa flinched. She took a sharp breath and looked back up at Yoko. "But it's for the fate of the world!"

"Fate of the world or not, we are not stealing any more items that belong to someone else and just happen to have Moon Pieces in them." Yoko swept her arm out to the side. "The paperweight incident was bad enough, and I still have no idea how you talked me into cooperating with that, but there is no way that I will take any part in stealing from Yukari's parents' store! We may have the Copy Cards, but how do you know whether the copies will be good enough imitations to make somebody who might actually want that necklace happy? Or how long the copies last?"

"But-"

Yukari stepped in. "Calm down, girls. Now, I'm not exactly a fan of the prospect of taking something from the store and replacing it with a well-made decoy, either, but I'm sure we can work something out."

"Like what?", Asa asked.

"Yeah, Okamoto," Hoshi said. "That thing costs way more than someone our age could even reasonably have."

Mia raised her hand. "We could always try and put some sort of plan together to come up with the money to get it fairly, I think."

Asa stared. "...Fundraising?"

"It's better than nothing," Yoko sighed.

A few blocks northeast of the Seiki Open Mall, a red-haired woman in pink sat down on her couch and turned the pearlescent heart on her necklace around between her fingers. The man beside her shook his head and held her other hand.

"So what you're saying is, as far as we know, things have gone from bad to worse."

A third figure, sitting on the chair beside the couch, nodded. "The Etherium has no less than four Moon Pieces. Depending on how their fight with Cure Night and Cure Sunday went, they might even have seven or eight. I wouldn't give up yet, though! There's still a chance that things can be fixed!"

Dawn cracked a smile. "You're always so positive, aren't you?"

"Thanks to you," she replied.

The blue-haired man looked up. "She's right, though. Four Moon Pieces aren't nearly enough to get the Moon Dial working, and even seven will only get it to work inside the Etherium itself. Repairing it requires all thirteen. Wasn't that why the Elder scattered the Moon Pieces in the first place?"

"You're right." Dawn drew out a rough black gem with one polished edge, the numeral XI carved into it. "I've still got my Moon Piece. It looks like we're going to have to start gathering them ourselves at this rate. I know the Elder wanted to buy Sunday and Night time to learn without going up against enemies with a full Moon Dial, but..."

The other woman smiled. "You believe in them, don't you?"

"You're rubbing off on me," Dawn said.

A fluffy white creature climbed up onto the couch and looked up at the humans. "I still worry about them ~sasa. We were supposed to come back and give you back your powers if this ever happened, but in the emergency, the Elder could only send Starry with the new transformation items ~sasa..."

"I understand how you feel, Sunbi," Dawn said. "I'm a parent too, aren't I? If one of my daughters were a Pretty Cure, I don't think I'd be able to sleep. The situation as it is is hard enough."

"That said," the other woman added, "from what I've been able to see, he's been doing the best he can. You should be proud of him! Just like I'm proud of Kawada-san and Nakayama-san for doing the best they can."

Moonla looked up from her lap. "You're right ~muu..."

"This is a time when all sorts of groups are moving against the Land of Legends, and Pretty Cure keep being summoned all over the world to defeat them. Yet Sunday and Night are the only ones fighting the Etherium. It's the perfect time for Eiender to go for the rest of the Moon Pieces." Devance turned his black eye mask around in his hands. "If it comes down to it, I hope the three of us will be enough help."

"Lemonade stand?", Asa suggested.

Mia sighed. "I thought only elementary school students had lemonade stands. Besides, it's barely March. Isn't it still too cold?"

"Hmm..." Yoko thought. "Dog walking?"

"There are what, five people in this town with dogs?" Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "I don't really think that's going to work here. How about a bake sale?"

"Have you forgotten the cake incident already?" Hoshi groaned. "After Asa's birthday, I don't want to see another cake for a _year_."

"It has to be something we can do really quickly!" Asa pumped her fist. "The sooner, the better! Like tomorrow!"

"Not tomorrow! Are you crazy!", Hoshi exclaimed. "We can't put anything together that quickly, no matter what it is!"

"But then when can we?" Mia wrung her hands. "The cultural festival's in just a little over a week, and _then_ we have finals to study for. We'll be too busy, and so will everybody else we know."

Yukari snapped her fingers. "Mia, that's perfect."

Mia blinked. "It is?"

"The cultural festival!" Yukari pushed her glasses up and began to walk around the room. "Everybody at school is dedicating their time to the cultural festival, and whatever we do will just be seen as a distraction and not get nearly as much attention as we need. So why not do something related to the cultural festival? We could run a mini-talent show and say it's for drumming up interest in the town so people will attend the festival!"

"You think that'll work?", Yoko asked.

"Absolutely," said Yukari. "Mia, you promote events around town for extra money sometimes, don't you? We'll be able to do this in no time."

Mia rubbed the back of her head. "Well, if you're sure, but I haven't handed out flyers since that time the magic show I was advertising turned out to be a trap. Do you think that people will wonder-"

"No, no! It's fine!" Yukari waved her hand in the air. "Hoshi! You live in Fubuki Town, right? You can handle advertising there. Asa, take the south end. Yoko, take the north end. Mia can work on central, and I'll do all we need to get this event actually set up. We can get this put up and done in the park. We have... what day is it?"

"Tuesday," Mia said.

"I'm sure I can get the park on Saturday afternoon, after school ends in the morning, so that's one, two, three... four days to get ready. We have until then to put together routines and advertise around. Any closer to the cultural festival, and everyone will be too busy."

"This is gonna be the greatest!" Asa cheered. "We'll have it done in no time!"

"It better work," Hoshi sighed.

Yoko shook her head. "Well, what else can we do?"

The first big hurdle was actually coming up with, putting together, and practicing their acts. In an effort to not repeat the Cake Incident, the group worked out what everybody was doing before they left the store. At least then, there wouldn't be five only slighly varying song and dance routines to the same popular song.

In the end, they had had to talk Asa out of doing a one-person dramatic reenactment of the climax of last week's DaiFighter episode, and Hoshi volunteered her to help with her Fubuki Style demonstration instead... which mostly meant holding the things that Hoshi was going to break apart. Mia volunteered to sing and also mentioned that she would ask Ami-sensei if they could borrow one of her inventions. Something about a robot that played the xylophone on its own. Yoko hesitated on demonstrating her own talent, but with some prodding, she agreed to take apart an engine and put it back together on stage. If anything, it would be informative to the crowd. Asa did grumble enough for her own segment that they let her do a speech on something, as long as - and this was a big one - she didn't bore people to death. Hoshi personally appointed herself as the judge of boring versus interesting. Yukari, itching to try out some new speakers, suggested on top of her own flute playing that everybody do a dance routine to finish the whole thing off. So that was that, then.

Building up interest proved to take just as much time. The girls split up according to Yukari's plan and began to hand out flyers after school. Mia put two large stacks in a small wagon and carted them over to the clock tower in the middle of town.

"Um, excuse me!" She timidly waved a flyer in the air. "We've got an event coming up, um, something you might want to see..."

"You have?"

Mia looked up at two identical white-haired men in suits. She coughed and shrunk back, offering out the flyer. "Well, yes... it's a talent show, sort of, that my friends and I are putting on, and..."

One of the men took it and read it over. The two of them smiled in unison.

"It looks interesting." They nodded to her and walked away, talking to one another. Mia let out a sigh of relief and picked up another flyer.

Getting their busy classmates to hear them out was harder, but just as Yukari had guessed, it went much more easily when the show was associated with the cultural festival rather than a distraction from it. Of course, official backing of some sort would convince the doubters. No problem.

"Absolutely!" Ami-sensei's eyes lit up, she clasped her hands together, and she practically sparkled. "The five of you taking the initiative to learn how to raise money is a wonderful thing! Truly, this class will be the shining beacons of societal progress!"

"It's not really that big of a deal, Ami-sensei..." Yoko sighed.

"What are you talking about, Yoko?" Asa pumped her fist in the air. "Of course it's a big deal!"

"Asa..."

Ami-sensei didn't seem to be listening. "I may just be a teacher, and I can't make your event official, especially since you're going to be using the proceeds for yourselves. But since I'm so proud that you're learning to do things yourselves, and because you're also going to be using your show to promote a school event, I'll put my full support behind it! If you need anything, anything at all, just tell me!"

Yukari dusted her hands off. That was that, then.

The next four days were probably the busiest that any of the five girls had ever had. With school winding up soon, the cultural festival to prepare for, and the talent show to throw together in hopes that it wouldn't blow up in their faces, they barely had any time for anything else. At least, and they appreciated this, no enemies had shown up to distract them even further.

The day was here.

Saturday. The girls' show would go ahead right on schedule.

Tachimany suspected, of course, at least something about that flyer they'd picked up from the red-haired girl with the pink bow. They'd never formally _met _her, uncanny resemblance to one of their enemies aside, but she had been wearing the Clair Academy middle school uniform, and they thought they recognized her from watching those two other girls. The new Pretty Cure.

Like they'd said, they were looking for the _old_ Pretty Cure. There were plenty of groups of Pretty Cure all over the Land of Legends, weren't there? Still, the two had some kind of connection. Otherwise, Dawn wouldn't have kept appearing to give them the chance to win. Appearing out of nowhere, like...

...Well, like now. That was definitely her, walking up to them as they sat on a park bench to look to all the world like two identical businessmen.

"Hello."

One of Tachimany's bodies looked up. "We suppose you're after something."

"That should be my line." Dawn rested her hands on her hips and looked down on them. "What are you doing out here? Planning to attack the girls again?"

"We're actually looking for you today," the other body said, and both stood up to meet her eye level. "In particular-"

"-we're investigating-"

"-why you and the others-"

"-are active again."

Dawn raised an eyebrow. "Did Eiender put you up to this, or did someone else?"

"Unfortunately, the Boss-"

"-is no longer with us."

"We decided this ourselves-"

"-after you got your powers back."

Dawn stared. "He's gone? Excuse my disbelief, but even Dusk and I couldn't defeat him when we were younger."

"He's changed a lot since then," one body explained. "Faded out of sight."

"What we hear is that he erased himself," the other body added. "Which brings the conversation back to why you still care."

"Hmm." Dawn frowned. "I suppose it's only fair. Getting our powers back? In one case, they never left. You of all people should know about your own faction's abilities. They come from within you, don't they? They reflect who you really are. That's the kind of thing that won't just disappear once you decide that you don't want the universe to end. Your powers won't die until you do."

"That explains _him_, yes-"

"-but what about you and your friend?"

"Simple," said Dawn. "We turned in our transformation players when we gave the Moon Dial to the Elder, after everything was done with. That was just how things were done back then. Once you didn't need to fight anymore, you gave up your ability to transform. From what I hear, Cures these days tend to have more of a choice on the matter."

"But now?", Tachimany asked in unison.

Dawn reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out what looked like an antiquated pink portable cassette player and a deck of cards similar to the cards for Asa's and Yoko's transformation phones. "When you and your friends were creating havoc with the girls out of town, we got into contact with the Elder. She sent Sunbi and Moonla down with our old transformation players. It seems that that was the original plan to begin with, if there were ever an emergency. The circumstances of your invasion, however, meant that she sent down the new transformation items with somebody else, designated new Cures, and scattered the Moon Pieces to buy them time. There's your even exchange of information, Tachimany." She turned on her heel. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I do not have time for this right now."

Yukari, true to her word, had talked with the town workers in charge of the park and had the stage set up again. At present, she was out at the entrance taking admission, and the rest of the group was huddled backstage and taking occasional glances past the curtain at the gathering audience.

"There still aren't that many people..." Yoko looked back at her friends. "Was this just a bad idea?"

"Don't give up now," Asa said. "We got some people to show up, didn't we? I just wish my mom hadn't been too busy. She always is."

"I didn't even ask my parents," Yoko sighed. "I'd have to answer too many questions about what I was doing and why we were raising money and why I thought this was a good idea. I'd probably have to anyway if they spent any time being social in town. They just leave every day to go back into the city for work."

"My parents came," Mia said. "They told me they wouldn't miss it!"

"They must be pretty nice," Yoko mused.

"Course they are, Nakayama." Hoshi facepalmed. "Remember when we went to Ami-sensei's house? Ogata's mom and Ami-sensei have been best friends since they were our age. For that alone, she's gotta be a saint."

"What's wrong with Ami-sensei?", Asa asked.

Hoshi gestured to Asa. "See what I mean?"

Asa pouted. "Worst best friend ever."

Starry waved down from the rafters of the makeshift stage. "Hurry and get onstage ~susu! It's almost time to start ~susu!"

"Yeah, yeah." Hoshi sighed and led Asa onstage behind the closed curtain. "Let's go make idiots of ourselves already."

"That's the spirit!" Asa beamed.

Yukari continued to take admission fees at the front. It was, she had to admit, difficult to enforce payment when they were in a park and people could easily sneak in another way, but most people in Kazahana City followed the rules. Even systems of conformity had their good sides, she mused. It didn't mean they didn't need to change, but it meant something right now. She smiled at the next person in line.

"Welcome! That'll be-" Yukari blinked and stared before shaking her head. "Ah, sorry! I've seen you before."

The woman in front of her smiled, pushing back a piece of cherry red hair. "Okamoto Yukari-san. It's been a while. How are your friends doing?"

Yukari fumbled with her glasses and smiled back, hesitating. "Pretty well, I think... we're all very busy at the moment."

"I've heard all about this." She smiled. "Well, not all about it. I think I'm still missing a key bit of information, but I'm sure you and the girls know what you're doing."

"You are?" Yukari's glasses nearly fell off her face.

The one they called Dawn laughed and handed over the admission fee. "Don't worry so much right now. I'm just here to support all of you. It isn't because of _that_. There's someone I'd be disappointing if I weren't here." She walked into the clearing, and Yukari soon lost her in the crowd.

Yoko pressed play on the sound system supplying the introduction music, and the small crowd quieted down outside. She walked out to the podium in front of the closed curtain and tapped the microphone.

"Good afternoon, everyone." She breathed in and out, reading ahead on the introduction on the paper in front of her, and looked out at the small audience. "Welcome. You'll find that our event this afternoon serves multiple purposes. One, and the thing you've probably heard the most about, is that we, a small group of students at Clair Academy's middle school division, have put this together to advertise the school's upcoming cultural festival to Kazahana City and the surrounding area. That's certainly true, but it's only one part of this event..."

Yoko knew that she wasn't supposed to look directly at audience members. Years of class presentations had informed her of that. She instead scanned just above them, giving the illusion that she was - wait, wait, what was that? Putting aside the rules, she focused in just to see that she wasn't seeing anything. There, four or five rows back, was Mitsuishi Seira. Alright, it wasn't surprising to see her there. Of course the other girls would have advertised to her at school. It also wasn't surprising to see her with Takashi at any given time, as she was right now. Seeing both of these things happen at the same time was another thing entirely. Sure enough, and defying his usual way of being, there was Nakayama Takashi, in the proximity of his twin sister without either avoiding her or trying to make her life miserable.

One of these days, Yoko would have to figure out just how many miracles could happen in the span of one school term.

"Yes, well." Yoko coughed and looked back at a tree just behind the clearing they were in. "That's true, but it's also teaching us a lot of things. How to put together an event like this on our own. How to work together. Things anybody's going to need in their life. Like our teacher says, it's something that will improve the world." Yoko inwardly rolled her eyes at the introduction as she read off the rest of it. She hadn't wanted to lie, and, well, this was the "compromise" that had resulted in. Yukari had deemed it the sort of thing that would move the hearts of the common people, and Mia had said that it sounded like a daytime drama. Apparently, to her, that was a good thing, even if Hoshi and Asa disagreed.

Hoshi and Asa... Hoshi was Asa's best friend, right? And Yukari was Yoko's best friend, or the closest thing to it. But then what was Asa to Yoko, or Yoko to Asa? They weren't just partners. They hadn't been since they started using each other's first names. They definitely weren't just regular friends after going through the imprinted memories of the past of erased world, or after talking their problems out at Gessou Lake when everybody else was in the guest lodge.

Yoko chased the train of thought out of her head. Sappy speeches made her think too much.

"With the introduction aside, please welcome our first act, in which Kondou Hoshi, with the assistance of Kawada Asa, will demonstrate the style of martial arts handed down from the Fuyuki family, founders of her hometown, Fubuki Town!"

She walked off the stage and, still hidden from the audience's view, Starry pulled open the curtain.

Dawn's interest in the event had cemented it. Tachimany needed to attend. They'd walked in in the form of one boy, paid, hidden in a bush, and transformed into ten white cats with gold-coloured collars. The cats began to weave through the crowd, climb up the trees, and slip around the stage. They searched. They watched.

They watched the blue-haired girl, the one who was Sunday, hold boards for the angry girl with the messy brown hair to destroy. Another cat body padded through the crowd, looking for a woman with cherry red hair and a pink dress. There she was, with the grown-up versions of the excitable girl she'd fought alongside and the sullen boy who had fought on the Etherium's side until his infiltration of the school went wrong somewhere along the line. That was one thing down.

They watched the girl on the stage with the same red hair, just a few shades lighter, and a pink hair bow. Whatever she was singing, judging by the younger people in the audience, was probably the latest trend. She wasn't good, really, but Tachimany knew the world of entertainment. You didn't have to be good. You just had to not be bad, and even that got you a few followers - or a lot - if you were lucky enough. Luck and persistence were first and second. Talent was third. Actually, talent was fourth to not being a freak with voices in your head.

One of them pawed around backstage. The cat body hid behind a curtain as the grey-haired girl walked over to a folding chair just by the wings and picked up her bag. She checked her phone for the time, mumbled something about having to switch off with Yukari for ticket duty, and ran out the back. Tachimany moved forward, investigating the items around - wait. What was that? Another one of those robots that had been all around the teacher's house... carrying a xylophone.

What.

Moving past that whatever-it-was, their other cat bodies started to congregate backstage.

Yukari had switched off ticket duty with Yoko. Mia was still singing, but Yukari's turn was up next. She walked behind the stage and approached the door up to the backstage area.

Somebody was stepping out.

She hid behind a tree and looked out. Nine girls dressed like shrine maidens were walking out in a clump. Two looked like they were carrying something out, but it was hard to tell considering their number. Yukari moved to step and confront the intruders when she saw white eye masks with gold-coloured jewel accents appear on all of their faces at once.

She stayed behind the tree.

Tachimany looked at each other and shook their heads.

"There wasn't any sign of them-"

"-so they must be in the crowd."

"But they knew we would be here."

"At least they suspected it."

"So the next thing to do-"

"-is to find them."

They began to move behind the stage, obscuring what they were carrying.

"They'll come to us."

"That's if we're lucky-"

"-but the odds are good."

Yukari, still hiding, stared. She started to follow after them, moving behind trees and bushes. With one hand, she pulled out her phone and began to text Yoko's number without looking.

_Something's come up. Get everyone else to go before me. Just buy a little time, okay?_

With that sent off, she continued to track Tachimany. They moved behind the stage, through the trees, and into another, smaller clearing. They set something down - Yukari still couldn't see what - and moved into a circle around it.

"Now."

They all said it in unison, clasped one another's hands, and concentrated. A golden glow surrounded them, and a magic circle in the same colour drew itself underneath.

Yukari moved forward to step out.

Another light flashed to the right.

All of Tachimany turned their heads to look. Yukari hid back behind the tree and slowly looked around the side.

There, standing on a sturdy branch of a blossoming cherry tree, were two women. One had bright pink hair, short and fluffy, with a heart-decorated ribbon at the back. Her uniform was pink and yellow, with a layered skirt and bows, but longer than Sunday's or Night's dresses. At her belt was what looked like a portable cassette player in a case. The other woman with her had one, too, and a lavender dress with blue accents. Her hair was long and flowing, and such a dark purple that it seemed black. Both of them posed on the branch and pointed down at Tachimany.

"Rising with the sun, I am Cure Dawn!"

"Falling with the night, I am Cure Dusk!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"In the past and in the future..."

"...we guard eternity itself!"

Yukari's eyes widened. She ducked behind the tree again.

One of the Tachimany bodies stepped forward with a confident smile. "Hello again."

"You've certainly changed."

"Even your uniforms have changed."

Dawn nodded. "You can't expect us to look the way we did in middle school, after all. Even if you people haven't changed."

"We were just waiting-"

"-for you to arrive."

"This paid off quickly enough."

Dawn shifted her feet on the tree branch and tensed up. "You mean to say that you were looking for us?"

"Well, of course."

"You, her, and-"

"-where is he, now?"

A throwing knife awash in dark blue light was flung down, stabbing the ground between Tachimany and the tree. They looked up. A blue-haired man in a black suit was standing on top of a lamppost, already drawing out another knife. He sighed. "I'm getting too old for dramatic introductions."

"You are pushing two hundred," Dusk laughed. Dawn just shook her head.

Tachimany moved out of the circle and spread out in front, all facing Dawn, Dusk, and Devance. They shifted from nine shrine maidens to four doctors and smirked.

"Of course, the main consideration-"

"-is _supposed_ to be the new Pretty Cure-"

"-but as long as we're in charge-"

"-we're investigating you as well."

"In charge? You?" Devance stared. "Then he's really..."

"Unfortunately."

"By his own choice-"

"-according to someone-"

"-we can tell isn't lying."

Yukari held her breath and listened, not about to risk looking out again. She heard Tachimany walk on the grass and Dawn and Dusk take in sharp breaths.

"What do you think you're doing with that thing?", Dusk demanded.

"What is that thing?", Dawn asked.

Gold light flashed in the clearing. Yukari saw the glow flicker past her and heard something rumble and grow. The light faded. She slowly looked over the side.

There, in the clearing, stood a clanking metal monstrosity with glowing golden eyes, a spring for one arm and a pipe for another, holding a stick and standing in front of a xylophone half the size of a tree.

"Hidoinaa!", it announced.

Yukari stared... and facepalmed.

Seriously. What had been with that text? It wasn't like Yukari to suddenly bail, and the xylophone-playing robot was gone, too. Yoko would normally worry, but Yukari seemed to know what she was doing... whatever she was doing.

Yoko shook her head and began her engine demonstration, starting it up and drowning out the noise of a monster that would otherwise send her and the others running to help.

Dawn and Dusk jumped down from the tree and charged the robot monster. As Yukari watched intently, it seemed to her completely out of their league. Every punch dented it, every kick sent it off-balance. Devance descended from the lamppost and hung back, supporting by aiming throwing knives at the thing's mechanical joints. It would crash over, cry out, and pull itself up again, playing on the giant xylophone to attack.

For all its noise, it kept being drowned out by the engine Yoko was explaining and demonstrating onstage. For its height, it never reached over top of the trees. The performers and the audience had no idea it was just in a clearing behind the stage. Yukari wasn't sure whether to sigh with relief or hold her breath.

Tachimany, for their part, stood with identical confident looks on their faces.

"Even out of practice-"

"-you've gotten stronger."

"Though you still might not-"

"-be able to defeat us all."

Dusk leapt on top of the xylophone itself, landing with a ring of one of the keys. "Dawn! We have to finish this quickly, don't we?"

Dawn nodded and jumped onto another key. "I'm glad you understand!"

They looked at each other, made eye contact, and grabbed each other's inside hands.

"Dawn Phasing!"

"Dusk Phasing!"

Dawn and Dusk extended their outside hands and charged up a large, glowing ball of pink and purple light.

"As the days move on..."

"you will be lost to time!"

They launched a colossal beam of energy at the robot, crackling and radiating off of everything.

"Pretty Cure Era Cycle!"

With enough strength, it crumpled inward and burned up in blue fire along with its xylophone. Dawn and Dusk landed on the ground in front of the restored, regular xylophone-bot.

"Why would you do this?" Dusk turned around and marched up to Tachimany. "Only to test us? Don't you realize that there are reasons that we were here that have nothing to do with you? How can you people keep being like this?"

"She's right." Dawn followed her partner forward and, for the first time that Yukari had seen her like this, glared. "Play around some other time."

Devance nodded and stood a few steps behind them. "We'll face you again, but stay away from the show this time."

Tachimany shifted into eight figures in gold hooded cloaks.

"It's surprising-"

"-that you would say that-"

"-when the three of you should know-"

"-that that's not how it works."

"Nobody cares-"

"-about their enemies' schedules-"

"-when nobody cares-"

"-about the world they're in."

A voice came from behind them. "Do you really not care?"

The eight Tachimany turned around and Dawn, Dusk, and Devance looked past them. Yukari emerged from behind the tree, quivering but focusing on the people in front of her.

"I said," she continued, "do you really not care?"

"Of course not," one Tachimany said.

"There's no reason to," said another."

"After all-"

"-we erased our own world-"

"-because we didn't care about it-"

"-and it didn't care about us."

Yukari took a deep breath and shook her head. "Then why are you leaving our performance be?"

"What?", asked eight Tachimany.

"Okamoto-san?" Cure Dusk blinked.

Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "That monster was just tall enough to still be hidden by the trees and just loud enough to still be drowned out by Yoko's engine demonstration. You didn't attack the show directly. You just wanted to draw out the three adults and fight them. Back last fall, when your allies attacked another show Mia was promoting, they were the ones putting on the show and they targeted the whole audience just to get Asa's and Yoko's attention."

"But in this case-"

"-attracting the attention-"

"-of the new Pretty Cure-"

"-would go against the idea-"

"-of testing only the previous."

"Their newly regained powers-"

"-and their increased strength-"

"-are the issue here."

Dawn put a hand on Dusk's arm. "Maybe the girl has a point."

"Thank you." Yukari bowed slightly. "All of you Tachimany, I don't know a lot about you. Maybe you don't know a lot about us, either. In the end, though, I think you might have wanted to let us be."

Tachimany shifted into one boy and stared into Yukari's face. "Just for a show to go on?"

Yukari flinched and didn't look right at him (them), but kept talking. "I might just be projecting myself on here. I wanted to help everyone. My friends _and_ my family _and_ the world. I know you and your friends hate the world, but you can't all be bad. I know you can't."

"It's not that simple to keep from choosing between one and the other!" The white-haired boy shook his head violently. "There will always be people who are hurt by what you do or scared of what you really are. Our world was - every world is filled with selfish people. There's no reason to try and live peacefully in a place like that. All you'll do is deny yourself and destroy yourself!"

"Maybe that's true!", Yukari yelled back. The three adults looked on, drawing closer to one another. Yukari continued. "Maybe you're right about some things. It's hard for a lot of people to belong. That's true. Sometimes it hurts more than people like me can imagine. It would probably be insulting you and all of the other people who have actually gone through those kinds of things for me to even try to say I understand. I don't. But I do know that, even though our world's not perfect, it's not so bad that it doesn't deserve to exist, either. In fact, the only way to change it and make it better is to try and work for everyone's happiness, no matter how much it hurts or how hopeless it looks!"

Tachimany shifted into eight again, hiding their faces under their cloaks.

"You're right-"

"-you don't know."

"You have people you actually love-"

"-who have no reason not to love you."

"You have reasons to care-"

"-about the Land of Legends-"

"-because you don't know any better!"

"If you know you can never understand, then why do you even try?"

Devance looked up. "She's right."

"You as well? Still?", Tachimany asked.

Devance nodded and looked away. "You can't brush what I say off as easily as you can for a kid like her. You know that I hated my own world. I hated everything for a long time. I know more than you do about being alone."

"You _used_ to understand," said another Tachimany. "How unnatural it is to be alone. We have never been alone, not even when there is only one..."

Devance put one of his throwing knives away on his belt. "I know. The only way to kill you is to kill all of you at once. Otherwise, you'll just regenerate your bodies all at once, and your minds will still all be intact. You still have yourselves. But nobody is saying that that makes you less able to say anything."

"You only can't say anything because you don't care," Dawn said. "Because you haven't found a reason to yet."

"There's a reason for everyone to care." Dusk smiled. "Nobody is asking you to abandon your cause just yet, but if there's anything right in the world, then I'm sure you'll see it! These children seem to see something good in all of you. If this is the way that the future goes, then surely everything will turn out better this time!"

Dawn raised her eyebrow at Dusk. "You really never change."

Tachimany moved at once, going for prop weapons under their cloaks... and didn't. A gold magic circle drew itself underneath them, and they disappeared.

Yukari looked at the ground and sighed. "I can't believe that worked... I should probably get back."

"As should we," Dawn said. "But we've missed a lot of the important part."

"Important part?", Yukari asked.

Devance and Dusk were already retreating into the trees. Dawn drew out her pearlescent heart necklace from the pouch for her transformation tape player. "I suppose there isn't much point in hiding it at this stage. Tell Mia that I didn't mean to miss her part."

"Mia? What does _Mia_ have to do with-"

Dawn started to turn to walk away. "Oh, and while we're at it, could you pass on your thanks to... Nakayama-san, I believe. For fixing my van."

As the red-haired woman retreated, Yukari shook, processing what she had heard.

_That's right._

Tachimany finished their last page of observations. Note-taking was much easier with multiple bodies to write with. This wouldn't take long to present at all, and then they could get on with looking for those last few Moon Pieces.

_We are never alone._


	21. Fateful Cultural Festival!

_My story? It started like anyone else's would._

The clock in the middle of town would chime every hour, with a different tone for each hour of the day. The neighbours hadn't complained to town council yet, so instead of stopping at eight o'clock, the sound rang out night and day. But they would complain. The future said so for certain.

Not that Akatoki Kirei had known.

_I was a regular girl set on the path that regular girls go._

She pushed aside the blinds and surveyed the town from her bedroom window. The Morning Garden Apartments were in a decent neighbourhood, but nothing fun ever happened there. Sure, there was Sapphire Park, but the town council was putting forward a bid to revitalize the town square and clean up the green area there, and when that happened, everyone would probably just go there instead. Oh, well. It wasn't as if she had any say in the matter, regardless of what would become of the neighbourhood. Or Kazahana City.

Eleven-fifty-nine.

Why did they call it a city if it was a town, anyway? Kirei sighed and followed the train of her distracted haze, staring out at nothing.

Twelve.

BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG.

Kirei's head shot back and her eyes snapped open. Before 'oh, right, the clock tower' could register in her brain, she looked around for the source of the noise. Light caught her eye in the middle of town. Just above the clock tower... something was coming down from the sky. Something sparkling.

Kirei's red eyes fixed on the light as she went for the window screen.

_I certainly wasn't some sort of born warrior._

Sneaking out of her room wasn't that hard. She was only living on the second level, and there was a tree just tall enough and just strong enough to support her on the way down. Her parents were probably already asleep, and they didn't have a history of waking up at the slightest noise. Kirei, discarding her pajamas for a pink dress at the top of her laundry pile, climbed out the window and down the tree with a flashlight in her hand. It wouldn't take long to get there. She knew her way around.

BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG.

Kirei couldn't keep her heart from beating overtime or her ears from reciting _go back home and be a good child right now or you're going to get yourself killed_, so she tried not to think at all. She just focused on the sparkling light. It was right above the tower now, and beginning to separate into two. What was it? Definitely not fireflies. She took deeper breaths and ran through the streets and paths.

_I hadn't even thought of doing anything bigger than what my family expected of me, at least not for any considerable length of time._

BONG. BONG. BONG.

Kirei burst into the town square and caught her breath. The two lights had kept descending, and she should have been right where they were. She looked up. There was definitely something sparkling and descending toward her, a pink light that reminded her of the sun rising. She put out her hands and the item dropped into them.

As the sparkle and glow faded, what appeared in her hands was a pink cassette player with a sun symbol on the case and a deck of hole-punched cards loaded inside.

"...what."

BONG.

While Kirei was still staring, something popped out of the tape player. A fuzzy white creature many times the object's size emerged, launched out, and landed on the ground. He (it was a he, right?) dusted himself off and waved up at her.

"Hello ~sasa!"

Kirei shook her head to make sure she was still in her right mind. "Um... what's going on, exactly?"

"We can explain that ~muu!" Another high-pitched voice, this one more feminine, came from in front of the two of them. Kirei looked back up. There was another fluffy creature, but this one was black instead of white, and she had a purple moon symbol on her forehead instead of a pink sun symbol like the one in front of Kirei. The black fuzzy thing (Kirei wasn't sure what else to call them) waved from the arms of a girl standing under a streetlight.

Kirei slowly went to pick up the white little fuzzy guy, not taking her eyes off the other two. "...Who are all of you people?"

"Don't worry!" The other girl smiled. The first thing Kirei noticed was her rumpled uniform - Clair Academy, right? And who wore their uniform after school? She didn't seem to mind, anyway, as she twirled her hair, so purple it was almost black.

"Just listen to them explain! I promise, we'll be perfectly fine!"

_Well, I hadn't yet, anyway._

Present day.

Ogata Kirei hid the tape player clipped to her waist and sighed, overlooking the supper table. "So how was your day?"

Mia looked up from her fish. "Well, it's been exciting, anyway... We're all working really hard on our displays for the cultural festival," she said. "You two are still coming, right?"

Kirei nodded and looked at the blue-haired beside her. "We wouldn't miss something like this."

"Right," he added. "It sounds like a more interesting cultural festival than the one we had when we were your age. Wasn't it a haunted house?"

"It was a maid cafe, Tomokazu," Kirei laughed. "The haunted house was the next year."

"I must be getting old," he said. The two of them laughed as if he'd just made a joke that went completely over Mia's head.

"I'm glad you'll be coming! It's too bad Karei-nee couldn't make it." Mia bowed, got up from her seat, and picked up her dishes. "I'm going to go back to the school, okay?"

"All right." Kirei smiled and returned to her food as her daughter put the dishes in the washer and went over to her room. Once Mia was out of sight, Kirei sighed.

Tomokazu lowered his voice. "You think something's going to happen, too, don't you?"

"I'm sure of it," she said. "That's why I said what I did. This is going to come to a head sooner rather than later, full Moon Dial or not."

"With Lord Eiender gone, and considering who's left, probably." He folded his hands. "Is that why you told that girl?"

"Mhm. We're not going to be able to hide for much longer." She looked at him. "I'd rather Mia not know, or get too deeply into this, but that just makes me ridiculous, doesn't it?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 20: Fateful Cultural Festival! Kainatrol Steps It Up!

In the week since the fundraiser, the school had been buzzing with preparations for the cultural festival. The entire curriculum was put on hold, with every class devoted solely to polishing their portion of the festival. After school, there were club activities - Yukari was in orchestra, Hoshi in gardening club ("what? Can't I do stuff like that too?"), Mia had tennis club, Yoko had been dragged into physics club at Yukari's urging that she at least try _something_, and did you really expect Asa to be a part of anything? (Although she was weighing her options for next year.) After _that_, the students could go home, but most of them stayed all night after school to devote all their time to the festival. The Lily Class had cleared the desks and chairs over to the side for the night and laid out school-provided sleeping bags with the Clair Academy crest on them all over the floor in an orderly fashion. Ami-sensei, the acting chaperone by virtue of her position, had her own large purple sleeping bag in front of her desk.

"So."

Kondou Hoshi sat down in the corner, looking over her friends in their small circle with their takeout from the convenience store down the road. The rest of the class was similarly divided into little friend clusters, eating whatever they had procured elsewhere.

"Since Ogata's not back yet, and since everyone else in here is busy talking about stupid stuff in their own little circles, we need to talk, and I'm pretty sure you all know what about." She looked at Asa. "And no, I don't mean last week's _DaiFighter_ episode."

Asa pouted. "But DaiFighter was so cool, getting up after General Iron almost crushed him! And GoldFighter reappearing again was-"

"Come on," Hoshi interrupted. "While I still have no idea how you managed to get the Visual Media Club to let you use their TV, we're talking about the real issue here. You know, the Pretty Cure thing?"

Asa sighed and nodded. Well, the Cure thing was almost as good as DaiFighter.

Yoko nodded and looked at Yukari. "You're sure about this, right?"

"She basically told me," Yukari replied. "Mia has no idea, so don't tell her. You know how long it takes for her to believe something out-of-the-ordinary. I have a sinking feeling that 'hey, did you know your mom's just come out of magical girl retirement and has been helping Yoko and Asa this whole time?' counts."

"Sometimes you can be sensible," Hoshi said. "So what are we gonna do about it?"

Asa took a bite of some unknown freeze-dried vegetable. "Keep watch over Mia! Obviously, if Dawn's her mom, then she's gonna be really important, right? Maybe she's, I dunno, the secret third Cure!"

"Wouldn't that be fifth Cure?", Yoko asked.

"Why are you humouring her?" Hoshi facepalmed. "Ogata's less involved than the rest of us. Besides, you two don't have any sparkly magic thing about your families. Obviously, this Cure thing has nothing to do with who your parents are. Now, other than making crazy theories about Ogata, what else are we gonna do?"

"Work on our exhibit for the festival," Yoko sighed. "It feels awkward, given the subject, but it's what we have to do."

"Yoko-", Asa started.

Yoko shook her head. "We have no idea what the Etherium is going to do. Although we've been searching for Moon Pieces, we've been on the defensive this entire time. All we have to go off of is Mireyes saying that there was another Moon Piece inside the school, and we've looked already! They might even have found it by now."

"You did find that other one in the store," Yukari offered, inspecting her shrimp. "And we did manage to get just enough to pay for it!"

"Barely," Yoko said. "And only by adding our own spending money to the pool."

"Leaving us with just enough to have to eat this garbage when we're stuck at school all week." Hoshi grimaced and poked at her boxed lunch. "At least Ogata got to go home for supper. I live out of town!"

Asa stared at her own box. "It's not that bad. I eat this all the time..."

"...oh, yeah." Hoshi looked away and went back to eating. Still, Yoko could swear that she heard her muttering, "...the wasabi isn't even green."

Asa tugged a string off her uniform jacket. "So, uh, about the Moon Piece!"

"I've got it," Yoko said, holding up her Storage Card. "It's the only one I _have_, but..."

"I've still got the other one," Asa said. "That leaves eleven, and we know the Etherium has at least seven of those. It's not supposed to go this way..."

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "Says the one who sleeps through math."

Asa made a face. "Hoshi, you are the worst best friend ever."

Yoko put her lunch box aside and stood up. "I'm going to go check on the physics club. The Fujisawas were setting up the obstacle course, and I need to make sure that they haven't broken anything."

"Okay!" Asa smiled. "Keep looking for the Moon Piece while you're up, alright?"

Yoko sighed. "...Sure."

"This is it."

There was truly nothing there now. No illusions of carved ivory walls, except for brief moments where they tried to re-assert themselves into being. The war room was a blank space where even the floors felt like they weren't going to last much longer. Those pledged to the Etherium were standing on illusions, existence rejecting the place that wasn't a place. Kainatrol stood between Tachimany, eight cloaked seers today, and the rest of them. She wondered how "the rest of them" had dwindled to just Mireyes and Binbeat. Well, it didn't matter. It wouldn't matter for long, anyway.

"We still have six Moon Pieces to go," Kainatrol announced, "and aside from two girls, their friends, and their fluffy little monster, we also have to deal with three people who were supposed to be out of our hair for good. Furthermore, we still haven't heard from our other deserter since his disappearance." She smirked. "There's no reason to panic, though. I'm sure our illustrious leaders have everything under control. Don't you?"

Tachimany nodded in unison and fanned out.

"We've discovered that-"

"-all of our opponents-"

"-will be occupied in the coming days-"

"-with the exact same thing."

"It's a public event-"

"so we have the choice-"

"-of either searching the area in their absence-"

"-or confronting them all at once."

Binbeat scratched his head. "You mean that thing at the school? That sounds boring. School sucks."

Kainatrol whirled around, raising her hand back. With a flash of purple light behind the veil that hid her eyes, Mireyes grabbed Kainatrol's wrist and held it in the air.

"He was speaking out of turn," Kainatrol seethed.

Mireyes stood where she was. "Have you ever thought that perhaps even fewer people would like to listen to you?"

Tachimany coughed in unison. "Regarding the plan?"

Kainatrol took a deep breath, wrenched herself from the old woman's grip, and glared. "Yes, of course." She turned back to Tachimany. "We've probably found all that we can find in the last sweep of the town. Certainly, confronting the Cures and their allies again, in a more prepared fashion and when they are all together at once, will be more fruitful. Who knows? They may even lead us to the remaining Moon Pieces themselves."

Tachimany shifted into four doctors. "A good idea."

"Of course, none of you mind-"

"-if we go down as well-"

"-to assist with the plan?"

Kainatrol smirked. "Certainly not. Besides, it's all about you now, isn't it? You are our senior, and with Lord Eiender gone, you're the next up." Her mask gleamed in the nonexistent light. "I'll just stay behind and guard the Moon Dial until you need me. I've never been good with confrontation..."

Tachimany all nodded. "Then it's settled." This would work out for everyone, they thought. Tachimany themselves were more used to their initial focus, recruitment and jobs that required disguise, but they'd always fought when they needed to. Being in charge now officially meant a different set of duties. Tachimany had never been predisposed to rigidity, but Kainatrol seemed fine with doing all of those administerial things for them, so that worked out nicely, didn't it?

It was odd, how helpful she was all of a sudden, but she'd been like that to Lord Eiender, too. She must have just been that loyal to the cause.

Why did she agree to these things?

Yoko walked down the hallway, transformation phone in hand. She was certainly afraid for the physics club breaking school property, but the other matter kept nagging at her, no matter how important the first was.

"Yoko?" Starry popped his head out of the phone. "We'll find it, don't worry ~susu!"

Yoko facepalmed. "Another Moon Piece in the school? We've been searching for weeks. The only places we haven't checked are the attic, the teacher's lounge, the men's washrooms, and the bell tower. What do those have in common?"

Starry blinked. "I'm not sure ~susu..."

"They're all places we're not allowed to be!" Yoko twitched. "I know we need the Moon Pieces, but that old woman is our enemy. She could have been lying to us! I'm not risking breaking the school rules on something that isn't verifiable again. It was bad enough the last time-"

"Mom, I don't want to talk about this right now."

Yoko stopped and blinked at the voice around the corner. She slowly began to walk toward it, closer to the wall.

Starry peered up at her from the phone. "That was Takashi, right ~susu?"

"Shh." She pressed herself against the wall and briefly looked over, standing next to the staircase. Her brother was pacing back and forth on the platform where the stairs turned back around, holding his cell phone away from his ear.

"Come on, Mom, it's not like we're in the same room or anything. We're divided by class, and my class is all guys." He paused, then groaned after a few seconds. "You just don't like her... What? Look, I'm sorry, but can we not talk about this right now? ...Yeah. I'll see you." He pressed the button to hang up and sighed. "Not this again."

"What is it?" Seira's voice.

"It's just my parents. They're being stupid."

"It's not me, is it?"

Takashi groaned. "They don't like that you were out of the country that long. 'Practically a foreigner' or something. She said it was fine at first, but now that we've been together for a couple months, she's going on about how I 'shouldn't take this too seriously'. I told you it was stupid."

"What? That's - No offense, but that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life."

"I know!", Takashi said. "Ugh. They're just gonna have to deal with it. I guess it could be worse. They'd disown me if it were something like... I don't even know what. If you were a guy, for one."

Yoko's grip on the transformation phone tightened.

Seira giggled. "Well, I guess you're clear _there..."_

"Yeah, you're right." The two of them started to walk down the stairs. "Come on, let's go for takeout or something. I don't exactly want to go home right now."

As they walked away, Starry stared up at Yoko.

"What's wrong ~susu? You look terrible ~susu..."

"Nothing," Yoko said hollowly. "It's just that he's right. ...Come on. Let's go. Physics club, right?"

"I don't trust that woman one bit," Mireyes snapped. She walked ahead in the void, crystal ball hovering between her hands.

Binbeat tagged along behind, alternating between floating and running. "So what're we gonna do?"

"Go to the school, first of all," Mireyes said, "but certainly not for her. We simply need to find that Moon Piece. You recall when I foresaw its presence there, correct?"

Binbeat stretched up his arms. "How d'you know someone else didn't get it first?"

"...I don't," Mireyes said, "not for certain. That isn't how precognition works. One can't simply call up the entire scenario. One simply sees what one needs to see."

"Geez, you always say boring stuff like that." Binbeat hovered by Mireyes and pouted. "So what'd you see that you needed to?"

"Look." Mireyes' eyes glowed purple behind her veil, the magic circle went up underneath her, and the crystal ball showed a circle of people. Pretty Cure, old and new, and their friends and allies.

"Yeah, of course they're gonna be there." Binbeat rolled his eyes. "What else?"

Mireyes tilted her head up at him, face covered as always. "I saw that all thirteen Moon Pieces will assemble there. It will be soon. I believe that the trigger will be the event with which we were ordered to interfere, hence my willingness to oblige - to a certain extent."

"Then what's gonna happen?", Binbeat asked.

Mireyes frowned. "Then it all ends."

The rest of the preparations for the festival were... eventful, but when the day came, Clair Academy was bursting with activity. The track field had been taken over for sports demonstrations and open-participation games, and the soccer field was covered in little booths for carnival games and unhealthy food. Decorations lined the walkway up to the front door, and above it hung a sign with blue and gold balloons that had "Academy Festival" written on them. The sign itself read:

|WELCOM-|

|E |

Mia stared up at the sign. "Um..."

"Did they run out of space on the first line?" Yoko twitched. "It doesn't even look nice."

"It looks fine!" Asa pointed up at the sign. "It's got balloons and happy faces and everything."

Yukari rubbed the back of her head. "It is a little unbalanced, but what can you do?"

"Make a new sign," Hoshi deadpanned.

"I agree!" The voice came from behind, and the five girls turned to look. Nakata Ami stood there, hands on hips. "The name 'Academy Festival is just so generic! I tried to suggest 'Justice Festival', but the school administration never listens to me! Life can be so unfair..."

"Ami-sensei!" Mia smiled and bowed. "How's the festival going?"

"Busy, naturally." She laughed. "It's difficult, but it's so exciting to see the students come together around festival season!"

Hoshi raised an eyebrow. "You say 'festival season', but I'm pretty sure this is the only school in the country that has the cultural festival at the end of the school year."

Asa sweatdropped. "Yeah, even Kazahana City Middle School has it in the fall."

"So did my old school in the city," Yoko said. "It's fairly common. Why is it different here?"

"That's a good question!" Ami clasped her hands together, and the girls could swear that she was giving off an aura of bubbles and sparkles. "Clair Academy decided to hold its cultural festival in the springtime long ago to honour the history of Kazahana City! You remember the story I told you on the school trip, right? The Haru family, who founded our city, has historically been symbolized by the spring!"

"I guess that makes sense." Yoko frowned. "Ami-sensei, I-"

"Yes? Ah, just a second!" Ami brightened (was that even possible?) and turned to the side a little to wave at an approaching couple. "Kirei! Tomokazu-kun!"

Mia stepped to the other side and waved with a smile on her face. "Ah, Mom and Dad! There you are!"

The other girls moved back a little to open up the circle and watched as the red-haired woman with the heart necklace and her blue-haired companion stepped up to it. Four sets of eyes rest on the woman, reconciling the mother and best friend the other two saw with the mystery who had kept stepping in to help. Ogata Kirei. Dawn.

She smiled. "Ami, good to see you. Mia, there you are. And your friends, right?"

Mia nodded. "Oh, this is Kawada Asa-san, and this is Nakayama Yoko-san - she fixed your van for Ami-sensei! This is Kondou Hoshi-san, who lives over in Fubuki Town, and this is Okamoto Yukari-san; her parents run Okamoto's Gifts down in the Seiki district."

"Nice to meet you." Mia's mother smiled. "As it were."

"...yeah," Yoko said. Asa started to say something, but Yoko shot her a glare. The girls looked at one another, all wondering what they could say that wouldn't be a completely idiotic idea.

Mia's father coughed. "It's nice to meet you all. And it's nice to see you, too, Ami. What's your class working on?"

"An exhibit of everything publicly known about Kazahana City's Pretty Cure," Ami replied with a smile. "Past and present! The students are very excited about it."

"Yeah!", Asa chirped. "It's fun, even if it's kind of embarrassing."

"Asa!", Hoshi and Yoko whispered at the same time.

Asa sweatdropped. "What?"

Yukari shook her head. "It's nice to meet you. My parents are around here somewhere, too. I saw them in the crowd when the orchestra was getting ready for our first performance. We're doing another one at three, and then one more later tonight."

"Mine aren't here yet," Hoshi said, glad for the topic change. "It takes a while to get into town."

"My mom's too busy." Asa looked away, as if expecting her to show up in the crowd regardless, like in the climax of a movie. "She has more than one job, so she's always working."

"My parents are going to be here," Yoko sighed, trying not to sound like she didn't want them there. "After my dad gets home and my mom's soap operas finish, so probably about five-thirty or so."

Mia looked around the circle, trembling a little, and cleared her throat. "Ami-sensei? I know we've already set up the exhibit and none of us is doing anything big like wearing those Pretty Cure costumes, but did you need us for anything?"

Ami-sensei lit up and applauded. "Now that's the spirit of volunteerism! Offering to help without even being asked! This world will surely get better if the future belongs to such people!" She tilted her head. "Hmm. You can certainly go up and patrol the exhibit! Misaki-san and Izumi-san could use a break from security duty. Oh, and Mitsuishi-san and Araki-san need water and refreshments!" She handed the girls some change. "Get something from one of the food stands, will you? Being Pretty Cure all day must be tiring for them!"

Yoko sweatdropped. "Yeah, really. I guess we'll be off, then." She bowed at Mia's parents. "It was nice meeting you."

"The same," Tomokazu said. Kirei just gave the same serious smile that Yoko had seen every time she'd seen her as 'Dawn'. It- Yoko had to get this off her mind. It was weirding her out too much. She turned and walked away, and the others followed.

That irritating, difficult, overpowered, brazen old hag.

That _witch_.

Protecting the brat was bad enough, Kainatrol thought as she stepped through a gap that widened in the wall. Now Mireyes was going around and hiding critical information from her. When the Shifting Multitudes had served their purpose and Kainatrol became the Boss, she decided, the crone had to go. She and her annoying little boy sidekick. That would leave her alone, but who cared? That was the whole point.

She carried the Moon Dial over to where she'd seen Mireyes and Binbeat talking about her. They were gone, of course, but a few words to the Dial and power flowing into it, and a clock appeared in front of her. She touched it, and their afterimages appeared, acting out the scene she'd just watched. Echoes. Impressions of the past, provided that the act had gone on in the bounds of the Etherium. Who knew it was possible to dredge those things up? Having the Moon Dial was so convenient.

Kainatrol watched their conversation pass and walked closer to them until she could stare into the crystal ball as Mireyes used Future Sight. Five young girls and three adults stood in an awkward circle, talking, making introductions.

Wait.

That was...

Kainatrol's eye mask gleamed.

"So who's doing what?", Yukari asked.

"I can go get the water right now," Mia offered. "It's a one-person job."

"Okay, sure." Yoko nodded. "I can switch out the security detail. Who's with me there- hey, Asa, are you listening?"

"Real food!" Asa had stars in her eyes, staring at the literary club's okonomiyaki stand. For that matter, so did Hoshi.

Yoko sighed. "Okay, you two are getting the food. Remember to get some for Araki-san and Mitsuishi-san." _Mitsuishi-san._ Thinking of Seira made her think of Takashi's conversation with their parents, and Yoko had done quite enough dwelling on that. Moving on. "Yukari, that leaves you and I for security. Let's go."

"Sounds good to me!" Yukari gave the V-sign. The group splintered off into three groups, going in three different directions.

Mia entered the school, walked through the lively corridors and past the populated classrooms, and opened the door to the cafeteria's kitchen. It was deserted at the moment, left unlocked so that students could grab the supplies they were storing in there. Mia walked over to a few flats of water stacked on top of each other and reached for a few bottles.

"Well, then."

She froze. That voice. No way. She slowly turned around, reaching blindly for something to defend herself with but knowing it was hopeless. There stood a woman with dark red hair, a red vest over a white dress shirt and pants, white gloves, and a white eye mask with red jewel accents covering yellow eyes.

"No." Mia could barely make out the word. She scrambled back, eyes huge, hands still moving around in search of something that would help. "No. No, no, no. Not you- ah!" She tripped backwards over the flats of water, knocking them down and crashing to the floor. She was cringing and rubbing her side when Kainatrol walked forward with a wide smile.

"I wasn't going to show up today," Kainatrol laughed. "But I decided to follow that old bag and see what was in that crystal ball of hers. Did you know that she's trying to get the Moon Pieces before I do? Because she doesn't trust me. Imagine that."

Mia looked up at her, shivering and trying to move. Kainatrol's eyes locked onto hers. The red magic circle of Tamer's Chain drew itself under her.

"And who knew? Aside from being a friend of those girls, you're also Devance's and Dawn's brat. Oh, this will be fun."

The other four were accounted for. Asa, Hoshi, Yoko, and Yukari had gathered in front of the Lily Class' room in a small clump, to the side of the door so that people could still get in.

"Food, check. Security switchout, check." Yukari adjusted her glasses. "But the water's not here. Has anyone seen Mia?"

"Who knows?" Hoshi shrugged. "Ogata probably got distracted. Or hungry."

Asa ate a takoyaki ball in one bite and poked Hoshi in the arm. "I guess we are all hungry, but come on! When you split up and your friend goes missing, that's the first sign to panic! Geez, Hoshi, the one time in your life that you don't worry..."

"I'm worried, alright," Hoshi said. "About you making a big deal out of nothing."

"Will you just stop it?" Yoko turned her head and glared at Hoshi. "You don't have to criticize her about everything, even if you are always trying to look out for her."

Asa blinked. "Huh? But _you_ always-"

Hoshi stared for a few seconds. Then, she facepalmed. "I'm not getting into this."

"What?", Yoko asked.

"What do you mean, what?", she groaned. "Don't tell me you don't even realize how obvious you're being."

"I'm not-"

"Hey, there she is." Yukari pushed through the circle and waved at a red-haired figure down the hall. "Mia! What took you?"

Mia stopped in the middle of the hallway. She slowly turned her head towards the group and stared at nothing.

"Mia?" Yukari started to walk over to her, and the others followed. "Hey, Mia, are you feeling alright? Why haven't you got the water?"

Mia turned the rest of her body around so she was fully facing them. She slowly began to smile as the image of her blank eyes began to sink in. She briskly turned back around and began to walk away through the crowd.

Yukari gaped. "Mia...?"

Yoko stared and began to shake. "Oh... no. Not now."

"I knew it." Asa pulled her transformation phone out and gestured to Yoko. "Come on! Before we lose her!"

Hoshi shook her head. "Okay, what's going on?"

Yoko looked straight at Hoshi. "Do you remember the magic show in the park last fall?"

"Come on!" Asa grabbed Yoko's wrist.

Yoko blinked and turned a little pink, but kept her attention on the other two. "Hoshi, Yukari, you need to warn everyone, okay? Or at least find D- find Ogata-san! We're going to take care of this!"

She tugged Yoko forward. Yoko, wide-eyed, nodded and walked along, the two of them leaving the others behind.

"Do you really think we should just leave them behind?", Asa asked. "I mean. we need their support in case we need to use the Unison Second!"

"We're obviously dealing with Kainatrol," Yoko said. "You know what she can do to people who don't have any powers. Remember the last time she controlled Ogata-san? Or Yukari? We'd just be putting them in danger."

Asa saw a head of red hair with a pink bow moving around a corner and sped up. "You mean Mia by 'Ogata-san', right? It's getting a little confusing now."

Yoko pulled back a little, still moving forward. "Yes, but that's not the point right now! And what are you doing? We can't run in the halls!"

Asa didn't slow down. "We can't let anyone get hurt, either!"

Yoko frowned as they turned the corner after her. "Fair point."

They stopped and looked up. Mia was nowhere to be seen, and the crowd was moving behind them. In front of them was the deserted staircase to the roof.

"This has to be a trap," Asa said, and then tugged at Yoko's wrist to ascend the stairs. "Let's go."

"You're walking right into one when you know what's going to happen?", Yoko asked, lagging a few steps behind. "Again?"

"It's like I keep telling you!" Asa kept walking. "It'll turn out."

Yoko picked up her own pace. "But what if it doesn't? Just because it happens on TV-"

Asa, for once in her life, looked completely serious. "We still need to save our friends, don't we?"

Yoko looked at the stairs. "...Right." They turned the next corner and climbed the rest of the stairs to the door before flinging it open.

It wasn't Mia behind the door. In fact, the roof appeared completely deserted. Asa and Yoko cautiously stepped out of the small upper-level "room" that the top of the stairs comprised. They looked side to side, over at the metal fence around the rooftop, the bell tower on the other side of the school, the people on the ground having fun.

"This shouldn't even be possible," Yoko said. "Where did she go?"

"I dunno..." Asa tugged Yoko's sleeve. "Hey, look at that!"

"What?" Yoko turned her head to where Asa was pointing. A white cat with a gold collar weaved around the benches on the rooftop and toward the girls, looking up.

"I'm pretty sure I've seen that cat before." Asa let go of Yoko and knelt down to inspect it. "I mean, it's got to be important, right?"

"...Asa?"

Asa looked up. Another cat was approaching them from another direction - and another, and another. Ten cats. All identical. White fur with gold collars. They encircled the girls and shifted into the form of four white-haired doctors.

"We were wondering-"

"-when you would arrive," Tachimany said.

"Let's make this fast-"

"and get you out of the way."

Hoshi marched forward with her eyes fixed on the end of the hallway. "The sooner we find her, the sooner we can get back and help Asa and Nakayama. What are they thinking!"

Yukari walked quickly to keep up with her, occasionally running when she started to lag behind. "You know they've probably got a plan, and besides! If you were Ogata-san, wouldn't you want to know that Mia was-"

"That's not the point," Hoshi groaned. "Maybe I am being a little hard on her-"

"Irrational, overprotective...", Yukari offered.

"Shut up, Okamoto."

"Proving my point?"

"_Fine_." She still wasn't looking at her. "The point is, we just need to find this Dawn lady, and then we can go track down Asa and Nakayama and help. We saw her ten minutes ago, it can't be that hard..."

"Ami-sensei!" Yukari ran a few steps ahead of Hoshi and waved down the hall. "Hey, Ami-sensei!"

"What?" Hoshi stopped, raised her eyebrows, and rested her hands on her hips.

Yukari looked back and smiled. "Well, she'd know, wouldn't she?"

"Wait, do you think-" Hoshi cut off. Yukari was already on her way to the teacher, who had just stepped out of the staff room. "Oh, come on!" Hoshi twitched and followed after.

"Ami-sensei!" Yukari waved and stopped in front of her. "There you are! We need you for something."

"Oh, hello!" Ami blinked. "Wait, Okamoto-san, weren't you on security?"

"It's sort of a special case." Yukari played with the end of her braid. "Anyways, I know this is a weird thing to ask, but you and Mia's parents are really good friends, right?"

"Of course!" The teacher frowned and looked over to the staircase. "Is this something that needs to be talked about somewhere less open?"

Hoshi blinked. "Wait, you mean you know? Like, know?"

"We know, too," Yukari reminded her, "and Yoko and Asa are our best friends."

"Well, yeah, but-" Hoshi cut off, but the phrase ditzy science teacher hung in the air where everyone could feel it.

Ami nodded and gestured for the two of them to follow her. They walked down the stairs in the opposite direction from the crowds and gathered beneath the staircase.

"Kirei and I are best friends," she began, a lot more serious than the two of them had ever seen her. "I've known both her and Tomokazu since we were your age. Either this involves Mia or it involves..."

"The other thing?", Yukari offered.

Hoshi cut in. "All of the above. The crazy mind control lady's got Ogata and is using her as bait, and Asa and Nakayama ran after her like a bunch of mice to a trap with cheese on it and told us to find backup."

"What?" Ami's hand hovered over the cassette player clipped to her belt, before moving to her pocket and drawing out her phone. "Where was this?"

"I know where they left _from_," Hoshi said. "They were going further into the east wing, same end as our classroom. But these guys can teleport, so who knows where they are!"

Ami-sensei looked straight into Hoshi's eyes and then into Yukari's. She nodded after a few seconds. "You're telling the truth and you're under your own power, at least! I was worried for a second. Naturally, I'm _still_ worried, but we can do this. Will you two stay with me while I call? I'll have somebody else cover you at the exhibit!"

Yukari nodded. "I think we all know this is more important than the exhibit."

"No kidding," Hoshi said.

"Then it's settled!" Ami clapped and pressed the first speed dial on her phone. She brought the phone up to her ear and frowned. "...Kirei?"

"Ami?"

"Kirei, where are you two? We have a situation."

"Soccer field, with all the food and game stands." Kirei held her phone up while she and her blue-haired companion scanned the field. "We spotted a certain group of people earlier and we're trying to track them down. A certain group of shrine maidens, in fact. Nine of them."

"Tachimany too? I know Kainatrol's here."

"She's _what?" _Kirei turned away from the phone. "Tomokazu. It isn't just them. Kainatrol's here, too."

"If she's here, then everyone is," he said, eyes narrowing. "She'll only come out and fight for two reasons. One, because she has to, and two, because she wants to."

"And if she _wants_ to, then that means..." Kirei returned to the phone. "Ami. Who is it? Who has she got?"

Ami hesitated. "From all accounts, Mia."

"That-" Kirei's words caught in her throat. She paused. "...she _would_. Where is she?"

"I don't know. Kawada-san and Nakayama-san were following Mia. Kondou-san and Okamoto-san came to tell you and ran into me."

"Do they know?" Kirei started walking faster, back in the direction of the school. Even though he could only hear half of the conversation, Tomokazu walked to keep up with her, still keeping his eyes open.

"Only about you," Ami said. "It's about time to change that, though, isn't it?"

"Your part of this is your business," Kirei replied. "Tell them if you want. Mine is out regardless. But-"

"Don't worry." Ami paused - she might have covered the phone to speak with Hoshi and Yukari for a second or two, or at least that was what Kirei guessed she was doing. "I know this is serious, but we've been through this before. The girls can handle themselves, and we've got them as much as they've got us! Right, Kirei?"

Kirei took a deep breath. "...You're the same as always, Ami."

Tomokazu stopped where he was, looking up at the school. "Kirei!"

She halted and turned to where he was staring. A red glow, almost like a circle of runes, appeared for a second on top of the bell tower. Kirei and Tomokazu looked at each other and nodded. they made their way behind a stand, and Kirei pressed a button on her phone to put Ami on the speaker.

"Ami," Kirei said. "Either she's on top of the bell tower or she's laid another trap, but she obviously wants us up there."

"The bell tower?" Ami paused again. "...She's playing with us. The girls are on the other side of the school."

"Gyah!"

Cure Sunday went flying backwards. She cried out and shut her eyes as she hit the wire fence around the rooftop.

"Sunday!" Night ran at Tachimany and threw a punch. They shifted out of their four-doctor form just before it would connect, leaving her off-balance. They solidified their shift into three aged women, and one of them shoved Night down. She skidded across the concrete.

Sunday twitched her fingers and pried herself out of the new dent in the fence. "Night!" She ran towards one of Tachimany's bodies and leapt into the air. Two more of their bodies moved quickly, grabbed her leg, and slammed her into the cement hard enough that it cracked and crushed.

"No!" Night picked herself up, holding her side. Three of Tachimany promptly grabbed her and held her back as she tried to pull away. "Sunday, get up!"

Sunday stiffened and shook, trying to will her body to move. In the back of her mind, she considered that she couldn't have survived this if she weren't a Cure. There had been a lot of things so far that she couldn't have survived, but now she couldn't even move.

Night struggled in the grasp of three identical shrine maidens. The remaining six circled around her, each with the same pondering look.

"One down-"

"-and three to go."

"Plus five more-"

"-but one's taken care of-"

"-and two are just backup for you."

"This should be easy."

Sunday breathed in and tried to clear her head. Get up. Just think of _something_. An image, fuzzy and blurry, started to appear. A young man with a helmet and a red bodysuit, with armour over top and a logo that looked like the sun. A general standing over him, smirking, sure that he was dead. And then he stood up.

_DaiFighter stood up._

And then Cure Sunday started to move.

Tachimany shifted into the form of twelve soldiers. Three kept holding Night back. The rest stood around her, hands at their swords.

"Get rid of one more-"

"-and then we'll have the Moon Pieces."

"If all goes well."

Night shut her eyes and lowered her head. "Asa..."

"Let her go."

Some of the Tachimany-bodies turned around; all of them at least widened their eyes and stood up. Cure Sunday pulled herself to her feet, knees bent and trying to stay up, holding one arm, and glaring at the sword-wielding soldiers.

Night opened her eyes. "Asa?"

"I said..." She clenched one fist and charged at the group with a punch. "Do it _now!"_

The hit connected. One Tachimany went flying into two of the others. Night wrenched her way free of the three holding her and scrambled over to Sunday.

Sunday looked up at her, still not quite standing up straight, and grabbed her hand. "Let's finish this part up now, okay?"

Night shook, looking at her. She started to smile despite herself. "...right."

A magic circle drew itself underneath them in pink and blue light.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

A dark blue aura grew around them, as it had done many times before.

"You've used up your days..."

"...and you're out of time!"

"Pretty Cure Second Spin!"

They flew straight at the gathered enemies and bowled a number of them down, spun around, and slammed right into them. The glow burned away and Sunday and Night stood there. Two soldiers stood on each side; the rest had disappeared.

Sunday looked at Night. "Did we just..."

"Oh, no-"

"-you didn't."

The Cures looked up. Around them, the four remaining Tachimany... divided. It was just as if they were shifting, but they simply produced eight more bodies to return to the twelve they had previously.

"To defeat one of us-"

"-you have to defeat all of us."

"We are many minds-"

"-in many bodies-"

"-but still united."

"To kill us-"

"-is to kill us all."

"In a form like this-"

"-where there are twelve of us-"

"-we are practically invincible."

Two of them drew out their prop swords. They slashed at the air in front of Sunday and Night; even that produced enough force to knock the injured Cures back to the ground. They began to converge upon them when a red light flashed across the courtyard. Both the Cures and Tachimany looked up to the light, already fading, at the bell tower in the school's west wing.

"Kainatrol."

"What's she doing?"

"It must be-"

"-that plan she's got."

They turned back to the Cures and shifted into the form of two businessmen. Both of them nodded.

"We'll continue this later-"

"-but, after all, you're already beaten."

"If you're still concerned about your friend-"

"-then we'd recommend you hurry."

They teleported out with a magic circle and a flash of gold light. The damaged rooftop repaired itself as the Cures looked on.

Kirei hesitated and looked from the bell tower to Tomokazu to her phone.

"She wants us up there. ...I know this is suicidal, but we should split up."

"What do you mean?", Ami asked from the phone.

Tomokazu shook his head. "If she can control people in the building when she's all the way up there, she must have the Moon Dial. If she's got that, only the Moon Pieces can shield us, and we've only got one."

"I know, but this is our best shot." Kirei took out her pink transformation cassette player. "If my guess is correct, then Kainatrol is running the show, even if nobody else knows it. If _that's_ right, we need to play to what we know she's like."

Sunbi popped out of the player and looked up at them. "Play to what we know she's like ~sasa?"

"Absolutely." Kirei frowned. "Unfortunately for us, she's sadistic, possibly insane, and driven to make people pay, and she's got a complex about being in charge even when she's pretending she's not. She'll be a lot more predictable if she thinks she's in control. You know what she's like when she's losing."

Tomokazu's expression hardened. "That's true. When somebody else has an edge over her, who knows what she'll do. She won't stop until they're worse than dead."

Kirei handed her phone to Sunbi and drew out a deck of cards with holes punched into them so that they'd fit inside the cassette player. She popped in one that looked like the Storage Card, closed the case, and pressed play. A Moon Piece with the serial number XI emerged, and Sunbi caught it. Kirei removed the Storage Card and placed the Copy Card in its place.

"So the best shot we have is to make her think that she's winning," she said. "Ami, I need you to do something for me. We all need to work as a cohesive whole. The kids, knowing them, should take care of the rest."

"Alright!" Ami nodded, even though Kirei couldn't hear it over the phone. "Just tell me what to do!"

"We're fighting on our own front now," Kirei said, "and the girls on another. If this is the way that destiny has turned out, we'll have to make the best of it."

"Don't worry," Ami said. "It's a good thing! Even across time, friendship and justice and loyalty will prevail! Isn't that what we always said?"

Kirei paused... and actually laughed. "You really never change, Ami."

"I do my best. Hold on." Ami covered the receiver again. She looked over to Hoshi and Yukari. "We've got one part of this, but please find Kawada-san and Nakayama-san. I think they'll need your help. After all, you're good friends!"

"Of course!", Yukari said.

"Not so fast, Okamoto." Hoshi put her hands on her hips. "Ami-sensei. I know we should trust you, but this is more important than day-to-day stuff. Do you really know what you're doing?"

"I'm hurt!" Ami clasped both hands over her phone. "Do you have that little faith in me?"

Hoshi didn't move. "Do you know what you're doing?"

Ami quieted down. Still covering the phone receiver with one hand, she went to her waist with the other and unclipped her purple portable cassette player. Inside was a deck of cards.

"I know you may only think of me as a silly, overdramatic person, maybe more of a child than an adult." She held out the player. "But Kondou-san, I really do believe that the world will improve if we all work together, and I also believe that it isn't a waste of time to fight for justice, even if it hurts. I know that we can all do this, and you are as much a part of that as anyone else."

Yukari stepped forward. "Ami-sensei..."

Ami looked at her students before her. "If you won't take my word as Nakata Ami, homeroom teacher of the Lily Class, then take it as Cure Dusk, alright?"

Hoshi stared first at her teacher, then at the item she was holding out, and then back up. "...Okay. You got me."

"We're with you," Yukari said.

He stood in the field, amidst children and parents and townspeople cluelessly having fun.

He didn't even know why he was there. He certainly didn't want to see them again. He especially didn't want to see her again. But then, he did, even if it was because he hated her. Especially that.

He didn't know what to do, but he knew more than anyone else who was gathered here. He still had to do something. After all, what he was working for all this time was at stake.

A blue magic circle drew itself under the Master Magician.


	22. Bonus! Takashi's Side

The cultural festival was coming up fast, and everyone in Clair Academy was discussing their classes' and clubs' contributions. He might not have been an expert on what everyone was doing at any given time, like that Omemi girl or someone, but Nakayama Takashi liked to think that he knew most of the important stuff.

The Iris Class and the Poppy Class, for example, had each decided to build a haunted house, and they'd fought over the multipurpose room until the principal had to step in. Geez. Underclassmen always made a big deal out of everything. Then again, whatever had apparently happened in the high school division of the campus was worse. All he'd heard of that was that the Poinsettia Class, or maybe it was the chemistry club, had accidentally poisoned their classroom. Probably an exaggeration. When Takashi had gone over there, everything was just covered in purple smoke.

Then there was the Lily Class, the second-year middle school girls' class. Whether it was their loopy teacher or the weirdos among the students, they'd come up with the worst idea ever. Seriously, a public tribute to Pretty Cure? He'd only seen them once, but he didn't think they were all that interesting. Okay, yeah, they had magical powers or whatever, but that was too much to think about. Seira seemed to like the display the class was doing - she was even dressing up for the thing. For his part, Takashi didn't have the heart to tell her that, for some reason or another, seeing her in that Cure costume just felt disturbing. It was one of those things that you couldn't understand because you didn't know everything, but you had a feeling about it either way. Takashi felt like that a lot.

Compared to all of the above, the Rose Class was probably getting off easy. Takashi hadn't exactly voted for what they were going to do, but it sounded hilarious, and it was better than getting pulled into a war over the multi. Easy as anything.

"Ahem."

Takashi promptly looked up from the sports magazine hidden in his textbook. Urobuchi-sensei, a tall man in a yellowish woven suit that smelled like the secondhand store, cleared his throat and addressed the room.

"Boys of the Rose Class, I have unfortunate news." He sniffed. "It appears as if a number of issues have turned up, the chief one being the submission of parental concerns. I realize that the cultural festival is coming up quickly, but you must show initiative and improvise, as we have officially been given orders beyond our control. With that, the planned contribution of 'comedy crossdressing maid cafe' is unfortunately cancelled."

Well. There went that.

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Bonus Episode 2: Fateful Cultural Festival... What? Takashi's Side!

"Okay, we're stuck," Takashi groaned, plopping down in his seat at the lunch table. "Whose parents complained?"

"Who knows?" Yokote Haruka pushed around the food in his lunch box. "Either way, it's a pain, because now we'll have to spend all our time coming up with something new and I'll never get a break! The teachers are already watching me like I stole something."

"Well, you _did_ try to look into the girls' changing room _five times_ last semester," Takashi sighed. "Then there was the camera thing a couple weeks ago. Still can't believe you actually thought that would work."

"It was a noble cause," Haruka said, stabbing his pile of rice.

"You're a mess," Takashi said. "Was the panty thing last fall you, too?"

"Copycat criminal," Haruka said, pushing his bleached bangs out of his face and posing like he was trying to summon a background of bubbles and sparkles, with maybe some roses for good measure. "Clearly jealous."

Takashi rolled his eyes. "Again, you're a mess. Why are we friends?"

Two more of their classmates sat down beside them. One of them rolled his eyes and opened up his lunch box. "Come on. We have, like, 900 yen left in the class cultural festival budget, so we can't do something new anyway. Might as well cut our losses."

"I don't know about you," the other snapped, "but I don't want a bad mark for sucking, and you know Urobuchi-sensei's not going to let us off easy even if it isn't our fault." He rolled his eyes and sat down with a bright pink lunch box with hearts on the lid.

Takashi gave a halfhearted, floppy sort of wave. "Hi, Koyama. Hey, Outa, who's the lunchbox from?"

"Hanamori from the Poppy Class," Outa shrugged, opening the box. "Think it looks edible?"

"Why do _you_ get all the girls?" Haruka grumbled. "At least it's just an underclassman. Whatever, I don't feel like talking about this."

"Meaning you got shot down again," Takashi shrugged, ignoring Haruka's resulting convulsion. "As for the cultural festival, I hate to butt in, but I agree with Outa. Even though it's pretty much impossible not to suck at this rate, we at least have a cafe, even without frilly pink dresses or whatever."

"Yeah, but it's still hopeless." Koyama rolled his eyes. "We went cheap on the food because we thought seeing a bunch of guys in dresses would make it funny enough that the actual eating didn't matter, remember? All we have is a bunch of premade frozen stuff and some pop and bad tea. We can't even steal ingredients from the home ec room and make anything. The Cooking Club's watching that place like a bunch of rabid dogs."

Outa facepalmed. "_Normal_ dogs stand and watch their stuff, Koyama, but rabid dogs? They just stop eating for a couple days and then start attacking you and eating your furniture in between seizures. Everybody knows that."

"The point is, it's useless!" Koyama growled. He picked up a piece of salted salmon between his chopsticks and tossed it across the table. Outa ducked to the side. The fish sailed over to the next table and landed in somebody's hair. Koyama's jaw slowly lowered and his eyes opened wide as his unintended victim - tall, silent, and wearing the high school variant of the Clair Academy boys' uniform - turned to the side in his seat and stared directly at him.

"Asamiya from the Lisianthus Class," Outa whispered after taking a quick glance. "Nice knowing you."

The older boy called Asamiya reached up for what felt to Koyama like ages and flicked the bulk of the piece of fish out of his hair and onto the floor. He frowned.

"What was that for?"

Koyama shivered and stared with even wider eyes. "Um... Food fight?"

At the declaration, even more eyes turned to look. Asamiya slowly rose from his chair. Hands from all over the lunchroom were already going to their onigiri and octopus-shaped sausages, ready to support any side or, more than likely, none but the cause of joining in the chaos. Takashi shook his head and got up from the table with his lunch.

"See you later, guys. I'm going to get ideas for how to make our cafe not suck and also avoid getting suspended." He started to walk away, lunch box in hand.

Haruka looked up from his sulking, blinked, and flailed to grab his own lunch. "Hey, wait, I'm coming with you!"

Takashi took pity on Haruka about halfway down the hallway and let him catch up. They walked down the hall and past the Rose Class' open door.

"Wait, that's our-"

"I'm not going to _our_ classroom," Takashi said without looking over his shoulder. "I'm checking out the competition."

Haruka ran to catch up again. "You're going to sabotage all the other classes?"

"No, moron." Takashi lightly bopped him. "I'm going to see what they're doing that we're not, since what we're doing is gonna suck if we sit here and run the most boring cafe in the universe. Short of drawing up a couple of censor bars on the windows and carrying around picket signs when we're serving people-"

"Hey, that sounds pretty cool-"

"If we actually do that, they're going to complain again," Takashi groaned. "They're obviously going to be able to tell when we're calling them on being a bunch of morons, and we're not going to be able to do anything about it until we're their age. Probably even later."

"Who says?" A third voice emerged. The boys halted and spun to the side. A girl wearing the middle school uniform smiled out of the Lily Class' doorway and adjusted the oversized modelling clay hairpiece affixed to her bright yellow hair.

"Seira!" Takashi rubbed the back of his head. "You popped up out of nowhere. You working on your class' exhibit thing?"

"More or less," Seira replied, taking the hair decorations out and laying them on a desk before walking out to greet the boys. "What are you guys doing?"

"Drowning in our own hopelessness. Uh, hey, Mitsuishi." Haruka fumbled through his quick mental readthrough of How To Address Other People's Hot Girlfriends In Front Of Said Other People.

Seira herself just blinked. "Huh?"

Takashi sighed. "Somebody's parents complained about our maid cafe. Something about how kids our age crossdressing will confuse and traumatize us for the rest of our lives. It's stupid and now we're trying not to fail because our food sucks and our presentation has nothing to it. I wanted to see what everyone else was doing."

"What? Really?" Seira crossed her arms. "I shouldn't be surprised. Even when I was overseas, parents freaked out about stuff we thought was normal. In fact, I'm pretty sure they freaked out more there than they do over here. Do you want to come look at our display?"

"I've already seen that," Takashi said. "Sorry, but it kind of freaks me out."

"What's wrong with Pretty Cure?", Haruka asked.

"I have nothing against them!", Takashi snapped. "They keep us from getting eaten by monsters. That's a good thing. Can we get back to looking for ideas?"

Seira cut in. "I heard the dance club is having a dancing challenge with one of those arcade rhythm games. We could check that out first? Then the Anemone Class is doing face painting, the girls' lacrosse team is having a fortune-telling booth..."

"We might as well check every room out," Haruka groaned.

Takashi brightened, and he did a small fist pump. "That's exactly what we're going to do. Come on, you guys." He gestured for them to follow as he walked down the hall.

"I'm up for it!" Seira twirled after.

"Seriously? Nakayama, you've got to be-" Haruka blinked and flailed, left behind again. "Hey, wait!"

And so, a tour of the school they did. Most of the clubs were doing small food stands or, as expected, haunted houses and maid cafes. Takashi wondered if anyone had ever held a haunted maid cafe. The art club had set up a station for people to try drawing in various media, the orchestra was holding a concert, the boys' soccer team was just making everybody pancakes. Entertaining, maybe. Okay, definitely entertaining, though most of that was laughing at Haruka tripping over himself trying to steal the Cooking Club's ingredients after they warned him for the fifth time that day. Takashi sort of felt sorry for the guy. At the moment, though, he felt more sorry for his class' grade.

"Well, that was a colossal waste of time." Takashi leaned against the wall where the stairs turned. "Maybe everyone else was right. Might as well just work with what we've got."

"Don't worry," Seira said, though she didn't look like she wasn't worrying, either. "We've spent a lot of time on this. It's already supper break."

Haruka looked up the stairs and caught sight of a quarter of the clock tower's face. "Whoa, it is? Sorry, guys, I've been starving for ages. The Cooking Club's food stores call! You two coming?"

"No way." Takashi waved him off with a shrug. "Leave me your stuff in your will."

Haruka cringed as if he'd been shot before brushing it off with that smile and flourish again, the one where he expected a bubble-and-flower background to lift itself out of a shoujo romance and deposit itself behind him on command. "Lesser beings might fear the wrath of the Cooking Club during preparations, but I have _charm_." He sprung off, humming some song or another.

"Lunatic." Takashi facepalmed.

Seira laughed. "He is pretty weird. I feel a little guilty saying so, though."

"Why?" Takashi raised an eyebrow. "Everyone else says it. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even care by now. I mean, we're friends."

"It's one of those things you have to feel guilty about. Even if you find somebody utterly creepy." She sighed. "Not saying he is, but it's one of those things."

Takashi raised an eyebrow. "I don't even get it, but I think I kind of do."

Seira smiled a little. "Anyways, about what you were getting at before, like with the 'censored' thing? I really think you guys should do it."

Blink. "Are you serious? We can't, we'll get in trouble from the school and the parents."

"I know," Seira said. "Maybe this is a bad idea, but what else are you going to do? Everyone will know what happened. At least this way, they'll know how you feel, too. Besides, it might be fun!"

Takashi shrugged and laughed. "Heh. Maybe."

His phone rang.

"Hey. Nakayama Takashi here. Oh, hey, Mom. Yeah, the cultural festival's going decently. Except our cafe... I'll just tell you later. ...What? No, I haven't. I'm just with Seira right now, and... Mom, I don't want to talk about this right now."

And so it continued the way it was heard.

Takashi didn't know why he was doing this. Well, he did, when he thought about it. Common sense said that he should talk to a faculty member about these kinds of things, but Urobuchi-sensei - and, indeed, pretty much every teacher at this school - would probably tell him to suck it up, keep his parents happy, and not act all too weird.

Every teacher but one, anyway.

Nakata Ami, science teacher and the Lily Class' homeroom teacher, sat down at the front desk of the chemistry lab with a sympathetic smile that almost made Takashi forget she was crazy. He fidgeted in his own seat, a lab chair pulled up to the other side of the desk. Ami-sensei folded her hands over something that looked like an archaic purple portable tape player.

"Tell me what's going on, Nakayama-san."

He did. With everyone else bustling around the school and the chem lab oddly deserted, Takashi told his sister's deluded teacher about the Rose Class' problem first, but then the words started rolling out like a pyramid of weights in the gym's fitness room that had collapsed their stand and were tumbling down the floor. He talked and kept talking about his parents, about Seira, about the town and the country and the whole stupid world and how it just wasn't-

"Fair," Ami-sensei finished. "It just isn't fair, is it?"

"You're telling me!" Takashi's fist pounded the teacher's desk. "Even if you're lucky enough to be born a normal guy, you still have to fit in, and that includes being _stupid_. There's nothing wrong with Seira! There's probably not even anything wrong with actual foreigners! My parents are just the kinds of people who don't want anyone to think they didn't step out of a Perfect Family of the Year award ceremony or whatever."

Ami frowned. "Society does shape people to be that way. They start to hate abnormality, and because normality isn't real in the first place, they start to hate themselves. Because of that, they turn on those less normal than they are."

"I guess you'd know," Takashi muttered.

Ami twitched. "Pardon?"

"Sorry." Takashi turned bright red and looked at the floor. "Even you want to be normal, huh?"

"A student normally wouldn't outright say to a teacher's face that he thought she was a lunatic," Ami said. She paused and shook her head. "But again, we're back to normalcy, aren't we? Yes, I do want to be normal sometimes. I dress professionally so that my bosses will pay attention to me, and I try to influence my students to become better people so that that attention will pay off when the principal sees my work. But on the other hand, I know I won't ever get that promotion I want." She sighed. "To tell you the truth, Clair Academy hasn't even hired any woman into the administration levels in the school's entire history, let alone an abnormal one. It's common in places like this. There are laws enforcing equal hiring at the bottom levels, but who gets to the top from there is another story. A lot of places, office buildings in some of the big cities more than schools, actually have people trying to marry off their employees, expecting that they'll retire to become housewives."

Takashi blinked. "Well, yeah, that's normal."

"Normal, but ridiculous and stupid," Ami-sensei said. "Just like what your parents said about you and Mitsuishi-san."

He thought about this. "Well... yeah. I guess I wouldn't want everyone thinking my life had to be a certain way. When you think about it, they already do, for everyone."

"Some more than others." She nodded. "Setups like these hurt the 'regular' people like you, too. They restrain you as much as they restrain the odd ones like me. It's fine to be a housewife if you want to be, but not if you're forced to be. Even if I wanted to be a housewife, I'm not naturally attracted to anybody, so one of the main qualities doesn't quite work out."

Takashi blinked. "You're not-"

"No."

"You mean, nobody you know?"

"Nobody at all."

"Are you sure you just haven't found-"

"_No_," Ami said. "Why does everybody ask the exact same questions? This is why the future generations have to be educated! As a sign of togetherness and understanding of one another! Understanding will break down the notion of normalcy, and with it, the unwarranted hatred that people defensively perpetuate towards those different from themselves! The world will be a better place in the future!"

Takashi stared and took in the impassioned speech as it echoed around the empty lab. It felt like forever before he spoke again. "...You really believe that, huh, Ami-sensei?"

Ami coughed and nodded. "I do. I always have, Nakayama-san. People change, sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better. Sometimes both at once. The only stipulation is that you or I or anyone else can't make them change. We can give them one or two ideas out of many, but their reactions are their own. People change if they want to change. It's painful when they don't, but I know that some of them do. Offering our own help is the best we can do."

Takashi thought. Finally, he shrugged and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I didn't really expect anything different, anyway."

Ami-sensei picked up her tape recorder and smiled. "If anything happens, tell me. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about before I go?"

Takashi scratched the back of his head. "Well... Kazahana City tries to be normal, but it's a pretty weird place."

Ami nodded again. "It is, at that."

"And sometimes I'm not sure what's real and what's made up."

"More is real than you think," Ami-sensei said.

"And I'm jealous of Yoko," he admitted. "I used to rag on her all the time for lying about the whole car thing, but I never thought she'd actually come out and admit it to everyone. I know it's not a huge thing, but if I did figure skating, I'd never admit it."

"Figure skating takes a great deal of fortitude," Ami interjected. "It isn't good to judge things by the glamour or lack of grittiness of their appearance."

"Yeah, well." Takashi sighed. "Speaking of my sister, I'm pretty sure she's hiding something."

Ami smiled a little. "Do you think so?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Well, more than usual. I mean, there was the car thing, and how she randomly started baking last month for no reason and got really mad when I ate her cake, and ever since we were seven I've been pretty sure she's a lesbian, but I mean something more important than all that stuff. She's always out and there's obviously something she's not mentioning, and with how weird this town is getting, who knows what she's doing."

"You're thirteen years old, Nakayama-san," Ami said, her smile widening a bit. "It's normal for somebody that age to be hiding things from their sibling and parents, no matter how innocuous the secret is. I hope that things go well for you, regardless."

Takashi bowed and started to pick up his things. He paused. "Wait. Didn't you say that normal doesn't exist, Ami-sensei?"

Ami-sensei smiled and stood up. The shine of the light coming in through the window made her black hair look purple.

"So I did."


	23. The Last Story?

_We were a wonderful team! ...most of the time._

Two girls floated in a white expanse, surrounded by nothing but gigantic drifting clocks where the hands moved back and forth or stayed stuck in one spot. The short dresses, bike shorts, and giant decorative gems on their outfits marked them as Pretty Cures; one had short, fluffy pink pigtails, the other, long purple-black hair. Each had a portable cassette player and an assortment of cards strapped to her hip.

"By 'echo', I mean an impression left of what used to exist, but doesn't." The purple Cure lectured like she was teaching. "Of course, such a thing hasn't been proven to exist. If it had, the Etherium would have done its best to destroy them, and in doing so, would have destroyed itself."

The pink one looked over at her friend, but her attention was more drawn to the white pearlescent heart necklace she was nervously playing with. The purple one seemed to understand; she continued.

"These are echoes. They're sort of like memories replaying. Most of them are of the worlds before they were destroyed, but some of them show things that happened afterward. I can't explain it with science."

The pink one briefly moved her hand, shook her head, and slid the necklace back under her collar.

"Do you think we'll find something here, Dusk?"

_Though we did have our disagreements, you became my best friend._

"Absolutely! If not information, then maybe some kind of energy that we could use to defeat them!" Cure Dusk smiled and gave a thumbs up. She watched her partner's face carefully.

Cure Dawn waited, breathing deeply, before sighing her reply. "...I hope you're right. Let's go."

"Dawn..." Dusk frowned. "Don't worry about Ogata-kun. I know we'll get through this-"

"Easy for you to say." Dawn glared at her and stepped forward. "You haven't had someone you cared about like this! You never _will!"_

"Kirei!"

Dusk walked up, drew her hand back, and slapped her.

_I couldn't imagine what you were going through then._

Dawn reeled back and brought a hand up to her face. "A-Ami..."

Dusk stood her ground, breathing in and out for a moment. "Dawn, listen to me. You know how important this is. Everyone we care about is counting on us. We _have_ to get through this."

"But-"

"We can help Ogata-kun, too!"

Kirei blinked and stopped. "We... can?"

_All I could do was try to fix it._

"Of course!" Cure Dusk smiled and gestured to the clocks filling the void. "There's something left of each of these worlds. There's a reason that these people don't just use that Moon Dial of theirs and erase everything just like that, and I have a feeling that it's because there's something protecting each of those worlds. It could be Pretty Cure for our world, Earth or the Land of Legends or whatever else you want to call it. It could be somebody else, or something else, for another world. I've spoken with the Elder and it sounds like they need someone-" She stopped and frowned at Dawn, hands on hips. "Dawn, this_ is _relevant!"

Dawn looked right at her. "Then tell me how."

Dusk sighed again. "To make a long story short, I'm sure there's a way for us to win. Seeing all of this proves it. I'm also sure there's a way to get through to him. After all, we're heroes of justice, aren't we?"

"I want to believe you, Ami," Dawn said. "But..."

"Don't worry, Kirei." Dusk smiled. "I've got a plan."

_In the end..._

Present day. Nakata Ami marched from the staircase with her face set in a determined frown. She gestured for the two students she'd been speaking with to follow and walked quickly and purposefully, her purple transformation tape player in her hand.

"Ami?" A tiny fuzzy head poked out of the cassette player, unnoticed by the cultural festival's crowd. "Do you think Kirei's plan will work ~muu? I know Mia-chan means a lot to her ~muu..."

"Of course I do, Moonla!" The seriousness of her expression tempered most, but not all, of Ami's usual enthusiasm. "It's because Mia means that much to her, and it's also because it's Kirei. She's always been strong." Ami looked over her shoulder. "Kondou-san, Okamoto-san!"

"We're coming!" Kondou Hoshi called out, catching up on Ami's right side.

"I'm sure this will work." Okamoto Yukari stepped in on the left.

Ami looked forward with a frown and led them toward the other stairs.

_Kirei, back then, you didn't know what to do. Neither did I, but you trusted me._

_Now I'll trust you._

Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~

Episode 21: The Last Story? Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk!

Kainatrol clapped imaginary dust off of the gloves on her hands. The red glow from her teleportation circle had faded, and she stood on the rooftop in the spring chill.

"Well, they've surely seen _that_, unless they're absolute idiots," she commented. She pivoted on her heel away from her view of the confused crowd. "You agree, of course."

A few paces behind her (well, in front of her, now), Ogata Mia stood with her eyes completely blank and her hands dangling at her sides. She slowly tilted her head up towards Kainatrol.

"...yes."

"You have no idea, do you?" Kainatrol smirked. She walked forward and slipped behind Mia, grabbing the girl's shoulder. "Of course you don't."

Mia shivered. Kainatrol tightened her grip and leaned over so her face was right beside hers, the Feared Tamer's yellow eyes giving off a slight red glow.

"You may as well get used to this," she said. "Oh, don't worry. If your friends don't survive their encounter with my temporary bosses, I'm sure mommy and teacher will come running out of the retirement home again. They've already shown their faces a few times. Maybe the new Cures just aren't cutting it." She stood up and shifted the mind-controlled girl to the side, walking past her. "If what Tachimany said has any weight to it, maybe they'll even bring your father along. It might be entertaining. If I have to wait for one defector to show himself before destroying him for good, I can occupy myself with wiping out another for practice."

Mia stared, completely empty. "..."

An explosion rang out from the other side of the school. Kainatrol briefly set her eyes on the lights and smoke from the roof across the green. She laughed. "That sounds eventful. I'll be staying over here. If they live, they'll come to me, anyway."

"..."

"Besides," Kainatrol continued, turning on her heel again to face her bait a meter or so away. "I have everything I need right here."

She put out her hand. A red magic circle drew itself on the ground, and something rose up out of it - a clock-shaped black platform, with cracks in it and five missing pieces, balancing on a stand. She put a hand on each side of the incomplete Moon Dial, taking in the power.

The door to the roof cracked open. Behind it, Ogata Kirei slipped the Copy Card back into her transformation cassette player.

Oh, this was just great.

"Don't worry about the noise," Omemi Emiru said for what must have been the fifteenth time, and it hadn't even been that long since the sounds of yelling and smashing came through the window (a window she quickly ran and shut). "The wrestling club is putting on a show somewhere." That seemed to be the most readily believable excuse, and she was lucky that most people in this school would believe her no matter what she said, or at least not look into it. Ugh, this was a pain. She knew exactly who to blame, too.

She didn't have to come up with a convincing cover-up, but this way was much easier for everybody. If people thought the real Cures were here, they would all come running and get in the way, probably getting themselves injured or killed or something. Oh, it wasn't like anybody bothered to come up to Emiru and explain things, let alone ask for help. But honestly? Strange noises from what sounded like the rooftop, Kawada and Nakayama suddenly absent, and their friends taking off not long after? What _else _could it have been? Besides, they probably wouldn't have told her anyway. She knew at least Kondou didn't trust her, Ogata had no reason to, and she'd tried to blackmail Nakayama, so that was three out of five. The other two were up in the air. Okamoto was smart and Kawada was, well, Kawada was strange.

Still, maybe they'd thank her for preventing mass panic and reckless endangerment. She could always lord it over them if they didn't.

"Hey, what's that, Omemi-san?"

Not again. Emiru turned to look at what her classmates were pointing at. She blinked, clamped her staring under control, and slowly raised her eyebrows at the red light appearing on the other rooftop.

"Oh, not now."

"Omemi-san?"

Emiru pushed her glasses up on her face. They gleamed, hiding her eyes. "Special effects malfunction. Since Ami-sensei isn't here, I'll go take care of it. All of you, stay _right _here."

"It hurts."

Cure Night, bruised and holding her side, looked over when her partner said that. Sunday had come out of the fight with Tachimany worse than Night had. She was bleeding from the back of her head, her blue hair sticking in reddening clumps. She clutched one of her arms, which hung limply at her side, and wavered with her legs in danger of buckling.

"Sunday-"

"I know," Sunday interrupted. "I messed up! You don't have to tell me, Night."

Night stood up straighter with a cringe. "You led us into a trap that we both knew full well was a trap, we still haven't found Ogata-san, _you_ almost got yourself killed - for that matter, for a minute there, I thought you were dead - not to mention that you nearly caved the school's roof in before the battle damage had a chance to undo itself, and we're missing class! You realize that you still get docked marks for skipping during the cultural festival, right? Right?"

"It's not like I meant to do any of that!" Sunday started shaking. "Even if we lost, we're still alive, aren't we? We still did something! And worrying about property damage and school rules? That is just like you! There are more important things!"

"Important? We almost died!" Night blinked back something in her eye. "_You_ almost died!"

Sunday cringed. "I know, Night! What was I supposed to do!"

Night opened her mouth. She paused, sighed, and shook her head. "I don't know, okay? ...You're right, though. We can't just do nothing."

Sunday looked over at Night. She winced just from moving her head. "Yoko?"

Night sighed again. Thinking about things that made her life complicated was, for once, the easier option. At least it kept her mind off of the cuts and bruises screaming for her attention. They might have been near-indestructible, but they could still take damage.

"Just... live, Asa, okay?" She reluctantly met Sunday's eyes. "Stay alive. It's a tall order if we're going to have to keep fighting right now, but I need you to - I mean, we both need to stay alive."

Sunday blinked. Her face turned slightly pink, and she nodded. "Of course! Who do you think we are?"

The next sound was cloth whipping in the air behind them, like a curtain or a cape. Sunday and Night pivoted on their heels. Nothing was there but a small clear bottle and a diamond-shaped crystal, sitting on one of the benches, and the last traces of a pale blue light on the ground. Sunday shuffled forward. Night immediately put out an arm to stop her.

"It's a trap," Night said.

"Maybe," Sunday replied.

"Maybe?" Night twitched and gestured to Sunday's injuries. "Look at the condition you're in! You're still calling this 'maybe'?"

"Who do you think it was?" Sunday pointed at where the blue light had been.

"Someone we can't trust!" Night marched over to the bottle, ignoring the pain of moving, and picked it up. The yellowing label was difficult to read; it looked like the ink the inscription was written in had also been yellow. There was a note tied to the neck of the bottle, neatly folded. "I mean, look at this!"

"Let me see that!" Sunday hobbled over. Night sighed, untied and unfolded the note with one hand, and held it out to her. She read it intently, her partner looking over as well. The ink was blue, and in contrast to the neatly folded paper it was written on, the note looked like it had been scrawled in a hurry.

_Don't ask why._

_There was someone once who made cures and poisons._

_This is the last cure we had._

_If your friend and your world are that important,_

_prove you can do something about it._

Sunday snatched the bottle out of Night's hand while she was distracted. Night snapped to attention and tried to grab it back. Sunday shook her head.

"_Obvious trap_," Night reminded.

"Maybe." Sunday frowned. "I trust him."

"What in the - why!"

"Because he reminds me of GoldFighter!" Sunday smiled. "I've told you about this before. GoldFighter acts like a bad guy who just hates the other bad guys, and maybe that's true, but it's because he was in love with someone he wanted to save! And he's helped us out before, even if he won't admit it!"

"That's-" Night gaped as Sunday uncorked the bottle and chugged half the contents with a wince. "Asa, what are you _doing!"_

What she was doing was, naturally, readily apparent. As soon as Cure Sunday's lips touched the bottle, its contents began to sparkle. As she drank half of the potion, she was awash with a strange-feeling glittery light that moved over her, patching up her cuts and repairing her bruises and breaks. Aside from a few tears and blood stains on her clothes, when Sunday took a deep breath and looked over at Night, she was as good as unharmed.

"Told you so."

"What part of 'live' don't you - oh, I give up. You're impossible." Night facepalmed, barely obscuring the relief in her sigh. A moment. "...So it worked?"

Sunday stood up straight and looked herself over. "I feel like I wasn't even hurt. Kind of numb, though."

Night shook her head. "Why would anyone from the Etherium help us?"

"Omemi-san came around when we just talked to her," Sunday said. "Yukari said she saw someone else who looked like he used to belong to the Etherium, too. These guys can change just like anybody else."

"If they want to. Why would they?" Night drifted off, eyes on the bottle.

Sunday blinked. "Night? What is it now?"

"Why did you have to drink straight from the bottle?" Night groaned. "You realize that was for both of us."

Sunday laughed a little. "You can still drink out of it!"

Night's face turned pink. "But..."

"...oh..." Sunday stared.

Night's eyes went wide. She shook her head vigorously. "It's not that which I'm worried about! I just don't want to catch mono or something like that!"

"I've never had mono," Sunday said. Night paused, the pink slowly turning to red.

"...Well, if I catch it anyway, I'm blaming you." She grabbed the half-full bottle and chugged the remainder of its contents.

Sunday pumped her fist. "Come on, let's go. The other wing, to the bell tower, right?"

"How are we going to get over there in time, again?" Night looked over there.

Sunday picked up the Hidoinaa crystal from the bench.

The two women, of course, were already there. The one who had reclaimed the name of Cure Dawn swung the door open and stalked out to the roof, not even bothering to hide her presence. The one who had rejected the name of Thera was standing ready, her hostage alone securing the other's presence as an inevitability.

"Dawn." Kainatrol smiled.

"You." Kirei looked at Kainatrol not unlike someone who had just uncovered the queen after dealing with a bee infestation.

"Mad?" Kainatrol laughed. "I was going to get you here sooner or later. This just happened to be the easiest way to do it. So where's Dusk? Or were you stupid enough to leave her behind?"

"Shut up for once in your life, Kainatrol," Kirei said. "You were disturbing when I was a child and you're unforgivable now."

Kainatrol laughed. "Oh, I've been unforgivable for quite some time, depending on who you ask." She laid a hand on Mia's shoulder and shook her head when Kirei clenched her fist at her side. "Calm down, Dawn. All I want are the Moon Pieces."

Kirei, taking deep breaths, walked over and stood right in front of Kainatrol and the dazed, blank-eyed Mia.

"I don't have them."

Kainatrol's power glowed around her eyes again. Kirei didn't even react.

"Give it up, Dawn," Kainatrol said. "We know you're no good at lying. The reason my power still won't work on you isn't because you're a Pretty Cure. I'm strong enough now that the only thing stopping me should be a Moon Piece."

"You overestimate the Moon Dial," Kirei said. "It's going to get you killed."

"You, Dawn," Kainatrol replied. "underestimate me." She turned over to Mia and smirked. "Go throw yourself off the roof, won't you?"

Mia turned her head up. "...yes." She slowly began moving towards the edge.

Kirei's arm shot out. She grabbed Mia's shoulder and held her in place as the girl followed the implied directions to struggle. Kirei took Mia's hand with the one that wasn't already holding her, quickly moving it out of a fist. Suddenly, Mia's thrashing stopped. Kirei swept her head back up and looked straight at Kainatrol.

"If you're trying to make me angry, you're doing very well, but if you're trying to do your job, you're more pathetic than I thought."

"My job?" Kainatrol bent her riding crop into a tight upside-down U. "You have no idea, do you? Just how strong I am. How strong I will be."

"The Moon Dial," Kirei said. "You do plan to keep it for yourself, don't you?"

"Obviously." Kainatrol shook her head with a laugh. "Did you expect anything different? You helped, after all."

"You're the one who erased Eiender, too."

"We have a winner! You know, you and Dusk were a big help. What was that speech you gave? Oh, right." Kainatrol clasped her hands mockingly, crop between them. "Something like, 'Why would you ever want to destroy everything? You must believe there's something good about life! After all, you're still alive! You don't want to erase yourself, do you? So why would you erase all these other people and all these other worlds?' That was it, right?"

"You-" Kirei's eyes went wide. "You talked him into all of it. That's why Tachimany said Eiender had changed. Why he faded out of sight. You convinced him to stop existing so _you_ could take over!"

"Words are so easy to misinterpret, aren't they?" Kainatrol smirked. "Now, stop stalling for time and hand over the Moon Piece. You know what I can do."

Mia started to stir from her daze. "Mom...?"

Kirei looked from Mia to the clock on top of the bell tower, nodded, and turned back to Kainatrol. "Fine. You realize, though, that you're not going to win."

"Still stalling, I see."

"Not really." Kirei reached into her pocket and, in full view of Kainatrol, drew out a black chunk of rock marked with the serial number XI. She slowly held it out.

Kainatrol reached out her hand.

"HIDOINAAAAA!"

"What?" Kirei looked up.

"Oh, now what?" Kainatrol did the same.

It was a fence.

The chain-link fence around the rooftop from the other side of the school had uprooted itself, standing up by collapsing and cascading its sections like a Jacob's ladder. As the people on the ground stood craning their necks and those inside the school crowded the windows, the fence grew a pair of eyes, one pink and orange, one blue and black. It launched one end over the academic green and affixed itself to the fence around the rooftop connecting to the clock tower. As the three on the roof watched, two figures came racing across the fence like a bridge.

"I'm not sure this is a good idea!" Night ran as quickly as she could.

"What would you suggest?" Sunday matched her speed. They leapt over the last stretch of the fence and landed on the concrete with a crack. Unharmed, they posed.

"On behalf of the light, I am Cure Sunday!"

"In the name of the shadows, I am Cure Night!"

"We are Pretty Cure!"

"We'll defend at all hours..."

"...to ensure a peaceful era!"

Mia blinked, shook her head, and looked up, clutching something to her chest. "Night! Sunday!"

"Where did you get that?" Kainatrol boggled. "Never mind, I can guess. You're late. Haven't you ever heard not to keep your audience waiting? Oh, I almost forgot." She snatched the Moon Piece out of Kirei's hand. "This little thing. That gives me eight out of thirteen, does it not? That leaves one with each of you, one hidden in the school somewhere, and two more. If I'm to believe the old hag, they're all gathered here today, and I'm the one who's going to get them."

"Ogata-san!"

"Oh, right." Kainatrol fixed her gold eyes on Kirei and started to glow red again. "Let's test this out now. Why don't you take their Moon Pieces for me?"

Kirei's eyes slowly glazed over. Her arms dropped to her sides, and she started to walk towards the Cures.

"W-what's going on?" Mia backed up, left behind.

"Are you crazy!" Night held her arms in front of her face. "How are we supposed to fight a detransformed-"

"That's half the fun, isn't it?" Kainatrol smirked. "Go."

Kirei ran forward.

Sunday held up her hand. Come on!"

"Hidoinaa!" The fence-Hidoinaa under their control launched itself over the regular fence and folded into a box around Night and Sunday. Its face disappeared from one surface and grew to face their mind-controlled assailant.

Night blinked. "How did you even...?"

Sunday shrugged. "It looked simple enough."

With the same blank expression, Kirei drew her hand back into a fist and punched forward. A pink light flashed as she connected with the metal. It crumpled and screamed, burning away; the fence as it had been reappeared around the other roof.

"How-" Asa blinked.

"It's the power of a fully-realized Pretty Cure ~susu..." Starry stared out of the phone.

Yoko gulped.

The inside of the bell tower was cramped and covered with a layer of dust. The lightbulb on the ceiling was controlled by a frayed, dangling string, and Mireyes had to pull Binbeat away more than once to keep him from playing with it. An old rotary phone hung beside a circuit breaker and a laminated sign.

"What's the sign say?" Binbeat squinted at it.

"I can't read the language of this place any more than you can," Mireyes said, "but I'm quite sure it's something along the lines of 'do not touch'. Now get away from there. We need to find the Moon Piece."

"Ooookaaaay." Binbeat groaned. "Can we at least get it soon? Checking all this stuff is boring."

"Patience, Binbeat." Mireyes swished thorough the small control room that ran the clock on the outside of the tower. "Why do you insist upon being impossible?"

Binbeat crossed his arms. "Mireeeeyes. You're not my mother. You're not even my grandma."

Mireyes' hand hovered over the doorknob. She quietly sighed.

"No, I suppose I'm not. Regardless, we've got something more important to do than risking your life by letting you tamper with the electricity. There are three Moon Pieces left that nobody has claimed, and one is somewhere in this school where those girls haven't checked. This is the most likely spot. We've got to get that Moon Piece before someone else does."

"Someone else Pretty Cure or someone else Kainatrol?"

"Either." Satisfied that the doorknob was not concealing a Moon Piece, Mireyes' aged hand bent around it and twisted the door open. She stepped through the hallway to the spiral staircase.

Binbeat followed after. "Where do you think the other two are, then?"

"I don't know," Mireyes said. "All Future Sight has told me is that they will all gather here."

As they walked up the stairs, neither noticed a white cat slipping through the door behind them.

Kirei threw a punch. Night skidded back with her arms in front of her face. Sunday turned to help; Kirei twisted backward and kicked her in the back of the head. She fell to the ground.

"Sunday!" Night ran over to her.

"I'm fine." She picked herself up. "Night?"

"I'm okay for now. What are we supposed to do? It's like that time with Yukari, but Ogata-san can actually fight! We just can't fight back or we'd hurt her, and Mia's..."

Mia, a meter or two away, stepped back, still clutching something to her chest and shaking.

"Oh, yes, I forgot about her." Kainatrol looked over, almost bored. "She's just getting in the way now. Clear her out."

Kirei slowly turned and walked toward Mia.

Mia froze.

Sunday and Night ran after.

Kirei ran, drew her hand back...

Someone blocked.

It wasn't Mia.

It was a woman with purple-black hair, holding Kirei's arm with enough strength to push her back.

Sunday and Night stumbled to a stop and stared. "Ami-sensei!"

Ami nodded, more serious than they'd ever seen her. "Girls. Kirei." She looked over behind them. "Kainatrol."

"Hello, Dusk," Kainatrol said. "I was wondering if you'd ever show. Didn't think everything through, did you?"

"Dusk?" Night blinked a few times. "Ami-sensei? _She's_ Cure Dusk?"

"I couldn't believe it, either." A slightly muscled girl with a mess of brown hair walked through the door to the roof, followed by a smaller girl with a long black braid. "Finally we agree on something, Nakayama."

Sunday looked up. "Hoshi! Yukari!"

The black-haired girl waved. "You didn't think we wouldn't notice you were gone, did you? We're friends, after all."

A small white head poked out from the top of Kirei's transformation tape player. "Ami, be careful ~sasa!"

"A...mi..." Kirei started to waver. Kainatrol's magic circle glowed brighter until Kirei went silent again and threw a punch at Ami. Ami returned it at the same time, both clashing equally with a bright flash of purple and pink.

Mia cringed. "Ami-sensei? What's going on?"

Ami smiled over shoulder with her usual enthusiasm. "It'll be fine. You'll see!"

Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. "So you say. As for me, I've wanted to do this since I met the both of you. This day gets better and better!"

Ami dodged a swing from Kirei and backed up. She looked straight at Kainatrol. "If it weren't for the fact that I'm still at work, I'd have very strong words for you right now."

Kainatrol frowned. "You people value your place in the world too highly. But then, it's expected if you actually care about your world that you'd have a reason to be happy in it." She smacked her riding crop into her palm. Kirei backed up as well with an unearthly grin, much like Kainatrol's own face a moment before.

Ami stood in front of the unacting Mia. "You say that, and all _your_ happiness comes from destroying others' happiness before making them disappear!"

"I'm just sharing the misery fairly around." Kainatrol swept out her arm. "Destroy each other already and let me get on with taking out the rest of the obstacles out here!"

"Mia, stay back." Ami shifted her stance.

Sunday started to move. "Ami-sensei! Ogata-san!"

Night held her back, turning her own face away. "You know what she can do."

"But-" Sunday pulled uselessly.

"Go!" Kainatrol ordered.

Kirei ran. So did Ami, each holding her left arm out like a board. They collided; each fighter's arm knocked the other down at the neck. Both were flung backward. Kainatrol gave her usual smirk.

A dome of light went up around the three of them just before Ami and Kirei hit the pavement. Underneath and spreading out around was a large magic circle in dark teal.

"Now what?" Hoshi looked around.

"That has to be..." Sunday looked up.

"Will somebody please explain to me just what is going on?", Mia exclaimed.

"Don't worry."

A figure emerged from the door to the roof in a black and teal colour-swap of the middle school girls' winter uniform. Her eye mask somehow gleamed even when the clouds were blocking the sun.

"Everything's under control so far."

"Omemi-san! I mean - Millusion!" Sunday stood up and Night let go of her. "What did you do?"

Millusion dangled her pendulum in front of her. "I'm keeping up an illusion world that completely copies the scene around us." She kept her calm, but she was visibly concentrating, and it wasn't on the conversation. "Kainatrol will never know the difference, and you two can go after that Moon Piece."

"Moon Piece? You mean there really is one here?" Night looked up.

"But-!" Mia cut in.

"Ami-sensei and your mom know what they're doing, Ogata." Hoshi put her hands on her hips. "Much as Omemi is Omemi, she does have a point this time."

"Thank you, Kondou," Millusion said.

"You- You didn't even see what went on!" Mia teared up. "That lunatic's got my _mother_ and she kept going on about magic and erasing the timeline and-"

"Mia." Another voice entered, this time from the direction of the bell tower. The gathered group turned to see. Most of them hadn't seen him before; he was a man with short, dark blue hair and a black suit with a belt covered in throwing knives, and he stood atop the locked wire fence in front of the door to the tower. He jumped and landed on his feet.

Mia blinked. "...Is that my_ dad?"_

He nodded. "Hello, Mia. For the rest of you, my name is Ogata Tomokazu. I used to be known as the Flawless Marksman, Devance. That was a while ago now."

Mia put one of her hands to her head. "This is too much..."

"I know. I'm sorry, Mia." Devance frowned. "Emiru-chan is right, though. Kirei planned this, with Ami's help. Look at what you're holding."

Mia looked down and slowly held out her hand and opened it. What she'd been holding to her chest was a black chunk of rock with one polished side. The Roman numeral XI was carved into it.

"It's the real eleventh Moon Piece ~susu!" Starry gasped. "She used the Copy Card and gave Kainatrol a fake one ~susu!"

"But the Etherium can tell a Moon Piece without using something like the Scan Card, can't they?", Night asked. "They just check everything themselves. How could this have worked?"

"Kainatrol is a sadist with a power complex," Devance explained. "In the one hundred twenty-five years I knew her, she always dealt with having her own agency stolen by stealing others' power over themselves. She hasn't changed in the nearly twenty-six years since. If she had the chance to force Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk to fight one another, she wouldn't be paying attention to the rest of you."

"Mia, are you okay?" Yukari felt her forehead.

"My mom's a Pretty Cure." She whispered, staring ahead with shrunken pupils. "My teacher's a Pretty Cure too. My dad's from the Etherium. I'm holding a Moon Piece. My friends are fighting for the fate of the world, my parents and the friend who was almost another family member did it before and are helping to do it again, and all I've done is just sit here."

"I told you we should have told her," Sunday said.

"Not the time, Asa," Hoshi groaned.

Devance shook his head. "I'm sorry about this. We wanted to at least make everything normal. It's the way of the world in places like this."

"Naturally," Millusion said. "I only found out about this whole plan from careful observation when I went to go see what was going on because everybody and their dog was throwing a fit in the classroom. Now, about that Moon Piece..."

Mia's stare didn't break. "My dad's _old."_

Yukari sighed and patted Mia's shoulder. "Do you know where it is, Omemi-san?"

Hoshi rolled her eyes. "Yes, tell us, o wise Omemi, mistress of knowing stuff that is other people's business."

"You'll take anything you can get, won't you, Kondou?" Millusion shook her head.

"It's in the clock," Devance said.

Sunday tilted her head. "The clock?"

Devance pointed up toward the bell tower. At the top was the bell, and right underneath was a large clock, not quite as big as the one on the clock tower in the middle of town. It ticked innocently on, and as Devance looked closer, it appeared that there was something small protruding from the centre.

Night stared. "...Of course. We're not allowed up there."

"_Saving the world,_ Night," Sunday reminded.

Night twitched. "...All right. Let's go."

"I'll keep this up for as long as I can," Millusion said, "but you might want to move fast. I saw a few other faces running around here."

Hoshi pointed to the gated entrance. "Uh, the lock?"

Devance drew one of the knives from his belt and tossed it. It turned into a sharp blade of blue light as he threw it, and it hit the lock and dissipated, cracking it open. The pieces fell to the ground, and the door swung open.

Night stiffened and shook, holding back a falling flood of ranting with a dam of he's-my-friend's-dad-and-he-kind-of-had-to-do-that. "Th-the lock-"

"I'll fix it later," he said. "Hurry, everyone. Emiru-chan, can you handle this by yourself?"

Millusion focused harder and began to glow with blue-green light herself. "...You might want to stay. You were in on their plan too, after all."

"I suppose." He nodded. "Work quickly, everyone. If something goes wrong, we'll be here."

Sunday and Night nodded and ran through the door. Hoshi and Yukari dragged a catatonic Mia after them.

Once the others were through the door, Millusion took a deep breath. "You know, you can come out now. I know you're here."

The flap of fabric behind her was the only reply. No one appeared.

Scaling the bell tower wasn't a problem; it wasn't that high from the roof. Five girls walking up through the control room and the staircase took only a minute or two at the most, and that was when one of them was still coming out of shock and had to be guided up the stairs. When they reached the top, someone stood in front of the door - a man in black with a top hat and long light blue hair.

"Mekuramast!" Sunday grinned. "I knew you were still around. You helped us again, didn't you?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he frowned. "Why do you want the Moon Pieces?"

Sunday blinked. "Huh?"

Mekuramast kept blocking the door. "Pretty Cure. If you're so intent on repairing the Moon Dial and taking it back for the Garden of Days, what are you going to do with it?"

"Let us through already!", Hoshi called up. "Asa, who is this guy?"

He tightened his fists at his sides. "Why do you care? Is this just to protect your own world? Or just to protect the timestream and leave everything be?"

"We know about Kore!", Sunday exclaimed.

"Sunday!" Night stared at her.

Mekuramast was stunned. Sunday continued. "We know about Kore and we know what happened to her. That's why you hate Kainatrol, isn't it? That's why you did everything you did up until now."

Mekuramast stiffened. Though it was only for a second or two, he seemed to stand there for a long time. As the girls waited for his answer, he took an audible breath in and out.

"...that's how you survived when Kainatrol tried to erase you, isn't it? Back at Gessou Village."

"What's how? We don't even know how we survived," Night said, not even sure if she should be talking.

"But that's what we saw after," Sunday added. "We ended up in the echo of your world for a while."

"It still exists," he said, speaking like he was the only one in the stairway. "The echo of the Garden of Rings is still in the Etherium somewhere..."

Night had to ask. "You know about that?"

"Of course I know," he snapped. "I found it years ago. I'm only still alive because I need to find it again, and I only want the Moon Pieces so I can fix it. Something the Elder of the Garden of Rings never did in the twenty-five years she had the Moon Dial."

"Twenty-five years again," Yukari mused. "We've been hearing that all day, haven't we?"

"What does the Elder have to do with this?", Sunday asked. "Night and I have never even met her!"

"Things that are erased aren't dead. They're gone, like they never existed, but the existence of Echoes proves that there's still something left. If she had the Moon Dial, she could have at least made an effort to do something instead of leave things alone to preserve the timeline."

"Preserve the timeline ~susu?" Starry popped out of Night's phone and landed, full size, on the ground. "But isn't that important ~susu?"

Mekuramast looked right at the Cures. "Tell me. Do you want to protect the way things are, or do you want to put them the way they should be?"

"Of course I-" Sunday paused. "...I know things aren't always perfect. I know they might not ever be perfect. I still want to help everyone, because even though life isn't fair, people deserve to live happily. That's why I want to be a hero!" She gave a little fist-pump. "I'm sure Night feels the same way."

"Sunday!"

Mekuramast turned his head to look down at Night.

Night gave a slow sigh. "...I guess she's right. Even the good parts of this world have bad sides, and even the people you love can hurt you. Bad things can be good, though, and the people who hurt you aren't completely terrible. It's the same with any other world." She looked up at Mekuramast. "You know that, too, don't you? You wanted to run away, but there was still hope somewhere in your world, or you wouldn't have wanted to leave with Kore. I know it's not my place to say this kind of thing, but you were wrong when you said your world wasn't worth living in. I'd have felt the same way if something happened to..."

"To?" Sunday tilted her head at Night.

"...It doesn't matter anyway." Night looked away.

Mekuramast shook his head. "You don't know what this is like. You don't know how it's been-"

"But we want to fix it!" Sunday walked up the stairs and looked right up at him. "We know you've been in pain for twice as long as most people can even be alive, and we know that it's because of a long chain of people passing along their pain, and we want to stop that! Of course we want to protect our world, and if it's at all possible, we want to help you save her, too! So believe in us and let us through!"

Mekuramast closed his eyes. After a second, he spoke again. "If you really want this, then do it." He teleported out, leaving the door unguarded.

"...whoa." Sunday let out a sigh of relief.

"Sunday?" Starry scratched his head. "Wasn't that last part from when DaiFighter was fighting GoldFighter two episodes ago ~susu?"

Sunday rubbed the back of her head. "Hey, I believe it."

Millusion had to concentrate.

She did have the talent for this. She had to in order to even pull it off. Not only were special powers of any sort pulled from one's own heart, Trance Lock wasn't the easiest ability to master. It involved mentally creating or recreating an entire landscape with enough detail to convince whoever was inside; even being in the exact space she was recreating, that was tough. The crowd of Hidoinaa passing themselves off as civilians on the academic green alone should have taken up all of her mental power. Even with all of the talent and aptitude she had, Millusion didn't have hundreds of years' worth of experience to manage it all.

There were gaps.

Maybe if it hadn't been for the bench that started to dissolve when Millusion glossed over it, or the clouds that she forgot to make move when it was supposed to be windy out, the dome of white light she was concentrating so hard on keeping up wouldn't have developed one, two, three cracks of dark red light spreading up the sides.

"Emiru-chan, your dome!" Devance readied a hand at his knife belt.

"I'm trying my best, all right!" She poured more power into it, glowing a brighter blue-green. "Trance Lock is stronger than this-"

At that moment, the dome burst, dissipating into the sky along with the light around Millusion. Kainatrol appeared in a flash of red light, and before Millusion could process it, was in her face. She knocked her back with a slap of her riding crop and pushed her to the ground, putting up a shield just in time to knock away Devance's throwing knives.

"Kainatrol!" Millusion cringed and tried not to think about where she'd been hit or the scrapes on her hands from hitting the ground.

"That was pathetic, Millusion." Kainatrol leaned over her. "You're an amateur, a failure, and a disappointment." She snapped back up to stand up straight and looked at Devance, laughing as he pulled out another throwing knife. "Oh, and you're here, too! That saves me the trouble. You know how I hate people who turn their backs on- _ngk!"_

Kainatrol dropped to the ground from a hit to the back of the head. Behind her, Ogata Kirei, the light having returned to her eyes, drew back her fist.

"You said you'd always wanted to force us to fight each other. It's only fair that I get to do something _I've_ always wanted to do." Kirei smiled down at the incapacitated Kainatrol, nodded at Devance, and then looked over at Millusion. "...Emiru-chan, I'd love to know how you got mixed up with the Etherium, but now's not the time. Do you need a hand?"

"I'm fine." Millusion picked herself up and dusted herself off. "We really ought to get to the Moon Piece, though, just in case. It's up on the clock."

Kirei nodded. "Ami? Now that we're done being the distraction..."

"I'm right ahead of you!" Ami pulled out her transformation tape player and loaded in the hole-punched Moon Card. Kirei did the same. They pressed play and grabbed one another's hands.

"Dual Eternal Repetition!"

Kainatrol's hand twitched and reached for her communication ring.

Binbeat and Mireyes stood on one side of the bell at the top of the tower. Tachimany stood at the other in their form of eleven shadowed figures with daggers in their hands.

"We've been informed-"

"-that you're sneaking around-"

"-and hiding information-"

"-about the Moon Pieces."

Mireyes clenched her old fists. "Kainatrol did this. How did she even-"

"It doesn't matter-"

"-who found you out-"

"-or how."

"The fact is-"

"-you two have betrayed-"

"-the Etherium's cause."

"The one you should be speaking with about betrayal is her, but you're clearly not going to listen." Mireyes summoned her crystal ball in a purple light. "Binbeat, get behind me."

Binbeat created an instant green magic circle, and the organ he played rose up from it, complete with the bench. "All right! Is this gonna take long?"

All eleven of Tachimany drew out their daggers and gave the same smile, white hair hiding their eyes. "Absolutely not."

Cure Sunday turned the doorknob and pushed open the door.


	24. Preparing as the World Breaks Down!

_I've been useless this whole time._

"You're just as weird as everyone says!" Ogata Mia stepped back from her classmate and put her stone souvenir back into her bag. "You really do believe in all that weird stuff you watch on TV, right? I'm not going to buy into it! Find someone else to be your weird 'friend' who helps you delude yourself!"

Kawada Asa wasn't replying. She just stood there shaking, holding her phone in one hand and some card in the other. Now that Mia looked at it, it probably wasn't even a real phone. It was too big for that, and too colourful. Probably some toy. A middle-school second-year taking toys to school! Omemi-san and the others had been right. Kawada-san was a freak. Mia needed to get away, _fast._ She took a deep breath.

"As for me, I'm going to go find my mom, who's picking me up, and then I'm going to go out shopping, and then I'm going to go home and do my homework and go to sleep! Know who does all that? _Normal people!_"

Mia turned and ran down the path, not even looking to see how Asa reacted.

_I was afraid to be anything but normal, and I pushed people away and tried to follow the rules._

She didn't stop running until she was out of Asa's sight. At that point, she slumped against a tree and sighed. "That was creepy..."

"What was?"

"Mom!" Mia stood up and looked over. Ogata Kirei emerged from a nearby clearing.

"Sorry I'm late," Kirei said. "I had something to attend to. What are you thinking about?"

"Just... something weird." Mia sighed. "You wouldn't understand."

Kirei shook her head. "Mia, you should know that I understand a lot of things."

"What do you mean?"

"My life's been very interesting," she said. "Especially when I was your age. Come on, let's go."

_I didn't believe that magic could be real until I saw it for myself._

Mia walked beside her mother, occasionally walking in front of her before falling back into step. The fall air was starting to chill her ears to pink.

Kirei turned her eyes to Mia. "I know what's worrying you could be any number of things that you probably don't want to say. There's no place more obsessed with conformity than middle school, after all."

"Moooom," Mia said. "I don't need a lecture. You don't understand."

"We've established this," her mother sighed. "I'm not going to give you the details, because I know you wouldn't listen or wouldn't believe me, and also because I'd rather you not know. What I can say, though, is that if you _do_ have anything you're worried about, I'll listen. I may be able to help if you give me a chance."

"Mom, you're embarrassing me."

"I can't be," Kirei laughed. "Nobody's around to be embarrassed in front of."

_I didn't even know that my own family wasn't regular._

"Can we at least talk about this at home? Later?", Mia pleaded.

Kirei laughed a little and nodded. "I suppose that's as good as anything. Tonight, okay? I know you just want to change and then go out shopping for a while."

Mia sighed with relief. "Right. Thanks, Mom. I know you're worried, but it's just..."

"Weird." Kirei smiled. "Believe me, it's a relief that that's the only thing you have to worry about right now."

"Mom?"

"Let's go."

_Despite all of this, Kawada-san and Nakayama-san kept saving me. So I need to..._

Present day. Ogata Mia blinked back to the waking world, surrounded by the others. The others? Right. Cure Sunday and Cure Night were there, and Kondou Hoshi and Okamoto Yukari, too. Mia took in their surroundings and remembered. They were in the bell tower on top of the school. In front of them was a crowd of people in cloaks drawing knives at an old woman and a kid, all in white clothes and either covering their eyes or wearing white eye masks.

"Etherium," Night whispered.

"They're fighting each other now?", Yukari asked.

Starry popped out of the phone and stepped back. "Everyone ~susu..."

Tachimany's eleven heads turned to the door where the Cures and their friends had come from.

-  
><em>Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~<em>  
>Episode 22: Let's Fight for Justice, Okay? Preparing as the World Breaks Down!<p>

Mireyes pushed forward as Tachimany's heads were turned. One of the bodies turned back just as quickly and stabbed forward. Mireyes dodged and grabbed the attacking arm. Another Tachimany body moved to her other side. Just as quickly, Mireyes turned and pulled the first Tachimany into the second's attacking path.

"Whoa..." Cure Sunday stared. "I knew she was fast and strong for an old lady, but -"

"It isn't that, Asa." Night pointed. "Look."

In a single movement, the first Tachimany broke Mireyes' grip, spun to face her, and sliced upwards with their dagger. She pulled back, the knife only slicing her clothes. Small purple magic circles drew themselves under her footsteps, disappearing just as quickly; for a split second, the Cures and their companions could see a purple light under the veil that was covering her eyes.

"She's using her ability, isn't she?" Yukari watched carefully as Mireyes struck out against a third Tachimany behind her. "Like when Omemi-san makes those world-spheres."

"It's Mireyes' power!" Night looked at Sunday. "Remember? She dodged before we could attack! She can see the future, and she uses it to predict her opponents' moves!"

"That's right." Mireyes projected her voice around the tower, still not appearing to be distracted from the fight. "So what are you going to do, Pretty Cure? Go ahead and try to get the Moon Piece. We won't lose to you or to them."

"Yeah!" Binbeat clapped and pounded the keys on the organ. A series of small explosions rang out around the tower. The Cures and their friends all cringed and covered their ears at once as some of the explosions rocked the giant bell above the battle area.

Two more of Tachimany leapt into the air from the back of the cluster, descending toward the Cures. They flipped in unison and kicked down. Sunday and Night barely had the time to raise their arms up to block and skidded back, bumping into Yukari and Hoshi behind them.

"Ow!" Yukari righted herself.

"Come on, Okamoto. Ogata, get out of the way." Hoshi grabbed Mia's wrist and dragged her to the back, Yukari following closely behind.

Sunday and Night pushed back, springing their attackers off of them. The two Tachimany looked up, as did the six idle ones.

"Moon Piece?"

"It's not surprising-"

"-that one would be here-"

"-especially since-"

"-everyone has gathered."

"_Attack._"

The six idle assassin-Tachimany descended upon Mireyes at once. The girls couldn't even see her after she lifted her hand and the scene became a mess of white cloaks and knives.

"Old lady!" Binbeat cried out.

Mia curled up into a ball and clutched the Moon Piece she was holding close to her. Hoshi and Yukari were talking about something in front of her; she couldn't tell what. Mia tried to focus. She noticed a small, fluffy orange creature popping out of - of one of the Cures' _phones?_ - and scrambling towards them.

"We need to get the other Moon Piece ~susu!" Starry waved his little arms around.

"I know, Starry..." Mia frowned. "I'm scared, though. What can I do? Even Kondou-san and Okamoto-san have things they can help with. Mom and Dad and Ami-sensei have been fighting, too. All I've ever been able to do is sit here and scream and get hurt."

"I feel like that a lot too ~susu." Starry looked up at her. "But there are things I can do even if they're different from what everybody else can, and there are things you can do too ~susu!"

Mia thought.

Invisible energy burst from the dogpile. Nine Tachimany were scattered over the bell tower in varying states of injury. Mireyes stood in the middle, eyes still hidden, her entire body glowing purple.

"Well," Mireyes' aged voice cracked. "It appears there isn't any choice, is there?"

The eleven total Tachimany rose up and looked at each other. The nine who were attacking Mireyes spread out in an array, moving around her and occasionally striking. The two in front of Sunday and Night kept their attentions on them, swiping and stabbing. The Cures blocked and dodged, backing up. Sunday suddenly grabbed the one she was fighting and threw them over her and into the wall behind. Night took the cue to duck and punch hers back. Once free, they had to guard from another wave of explosions from Binbeat's organ.

"They're fighting each other _and_ us!" Night skidded back. "Which ones do we even fight?"

Sunday turned her head over. "All of them?"

"Sunday!"

"Well, it looks like that's the only thing we can do!" Sunday grinned. "Come on, let's try to get through them to the Moon Piece!"

Unnoticed by the fight, Mia scooped Starry up into her arms and ran around the perimeter of the bell tower's top room. She looked over the edge, where the large clock ticked underneath, its hands moving and a small shine she could barely see at the place that joined them.

"That's it, right?", she asked.

"Right ~susu!" Starry waved his little arms around. "We need to get down there ~susu!"

Mia glanced around and spotted a rope laying off to the side. She knelt, put her Moon Piece down, and started tying the rope around Starry.

"If I can just lower you down there, you can grab the Moon Piece, right?"

Starry thought and nodded. "I'll do my best ~susu!"

Mia tied a knot around the rope, picked up the Moon Piece in one hand and the rope in the other with Starry in the crook of her arm, and looked over at the battle. Tachimany shifted into their form of four doctors, their prop daggers turning into scalpels and syringes. One of them swiped at Sunday, slicing her bow as she jumped back. Sunday grabbed his (their) arm and hurled him (them) over her shoulder. Two more jumped her from behind. Night cried out, grabbed their shoulders, and tore them off of Sunday. Mireyes blasted Night across the room. The remaining Tachimany attacked Mireyes, quickly joined by the three others who had risen up.

"I suppose _controlled_ chaos is better than all-out anarchy," mused another, darker voice.

Mia gasped and turned around at the voice. Kainatrol stood on the edge of the bell tower with a smirk as the light from her teleporting up there quickly faded.

"Always surprised, aren't you?" She laughed. "No wonder it took so long to see that you were Dawn's. Even when she was broken, _she_ could fight." Kainatrol lightly touched the side of her own head and ignored the pain where the bruise was forming under her hair. "You're only useful as bait or a tool to an end, and you've failed at _that_ half the time. Why don't you get out of the way?"

Mia shook, clutching Starry and her things to her chest. "You..."

"Naturally." Kainatrol smirked and looked past Mia. "Oh, _superiors..._ I know where the Moon Piece is now."

Tachimany came together again and divided into nine shrine maidens. One of them looked over at Kainatrol while the rest continued to fend off their opponents. "Tell us, then."

"Absolutely. In the centre of the clock." Kainatrol gestured over the side. "Of course, I can't get it myself..."

Three of Tachimany dashed for the edge. Binbeat slammed his hands down on the piano keys and a wave of explosions knocked them back. Another wave of Tachimany jumped over them as the remaining ones blocked Mireyes and the Cures three-on-three.

Mia shook. She stepped back.

"Oh, cute," Kainatrol mused. "You think that will save-" Her eyes went to the Moon Piece in Mia's hand. Then to the Moon Piece in her own hand. Kainatrol concentrated and the one she was holding disappeared.

Mia gulped.

"A _fake!_" Kainatrol seethed. "What do you think I am! Grab it!"

The three unoccupied Tachimany descended on Mia-

-one stumbled back, pierced by something glowing. Glowing and blue in the shape of a throwing knife. The other two quickly dodged to the side, avoiding identical knives.

Devance bit back a curse. "I knew my aim was off."

"Dad?" Mia hugged Starry and ran over to the edge. Devance landed there with a knife out, facing Kainatrol.

"Miss me, Kainatrol?" Millusion teleported onto the other side behind her.

"You didn't forget us, did you?" Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk jumped through as well, taking out the two Tachimany flanking Mia with kicks. Tachimany regrouped and shifted into five girls, already shaking off the injuries to their separate bodies.

"It doesn't matter how many of you there are!" Kainatrol summoned the Moon Dial beside her. "I've got all the power in the world!"

"Have you?" Dawn turned her head. "Mia, get the Moon Piece and we can take the rest!"

Sunbi popped his head out of Dawn's transformation cassette player. "You can do it ~sasa!"

"Mom..." Mia nodded and tightened the rope around Starry. "All right!"

Cure Dawn grabbed Cure Dusk's hand. They turned and aimed at the chaos in front of them.

"Dawn Phasing!"

"Dusk Phasing!"

Sunday and Night backflipped over and out of the way. They nodded and clasped hands as well, facing Kainatrol and going back-to-back with their predecessors.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

Hoshi concentrated and began to glow, sending power to the Cures. She looked over at Yukari. "Make yourself useful, Okamoto!"

Yukari smiled and gathered light herself, and it quickly flew into Sunday and Night. "Naturally!"

As power gathered in the Cures and the defectors watched Kainatrol, Mia took a deep breath and lowered Starry over the side by the rope.

"As the days move on..." Dawn began.

"...you will be lost to time," Dusk said.

"Despite the passage of time..." Sunday countered.

"Our feelings will endure forever!" Night finished.

A giant magic circle began to draw itself underneath them. Mireyes moved to guard Binbeat, and Tachimany shifted into another form to shield themselves.

Mia lowered the rope. "Just a little further..."

Kainatrol grabbed the Moon Dial and poured power into it. "You have no idea what you're dealing with!"

Starry swung on the end of the rope. "Almost there ~susu!"

Power gathered and light flashed in all colours, drawing the whole school's attention to the bell tower. Starry's little arms finally grabbed the Moon Piece.

And then -

It shone.

Amid the colour-coded lights, this Moon Piece shed its disguise in rainbow light, appearing as a black stone with the serial number III carved into it. After it, the Moon Dial in Kainatrol's hands glowed, too.

"This can't be good," Sunday gulped, breaking the incantation.

Night shook her head. "No, wait, look!"

The Moon Piece that Mia was holding was glowing rainbow colours, too. So, in turn, were Sunday's and Night's transformation phones. Night took out her phone and scanned the Storage Card, releasing her one Moon Piece; the Piece glowed, and so did the phone. Sunday did the same with the same result.

"The Moon Pieces are reacting like you said, old lady!" Binbeat stared.

Mireyes tensed. "But there are only eleven. They were all supposed to gather - all thirteen!"

Kainatrol went for the Moon Dial.

Every person in that tower - Cure, ally, Mireyes and Binbeat, all of Tachimany - ran for it too.

The rainbow lights reacted.

Flash.

Suddenly-

The light faded. Cure Sunday looked around.

"...Class?"

They took in the situation. The Etherium agents, former and current, were nowhere to be found. Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia (holding Starry) were all in a corner of the room. Cures Sunday, Night, Dawn, and Dusk had appeared in the centre.

The centre, that is, of the Lily Class' exhibition on the history and rumours of Pretty Cure for the cultural festival.

-

"How did you get here?"

"Who are you, really?"

"Can anyone become a Pretty Cure?"

It was probably a few minutes or less, but it felt like forever. Sunday fielded a few questions as if she were DaiFighter himself, or at least a guy in a suit pretending to be him at a meet-and-greet for young children. Night just kept her mouth shut.

"Is the whole monster thing actually real?"

"You're some kind of guardian spirits for the town or something, right?"

"No way! They're cosplayers, totally. You are, right?"

Sunday smiled and waved questions off, her heart beating quickly. "It's real! The Hidoinaa we fight and everything. Pretty Cure will always be there when you need us-"

"_Sunday,_" Night whispered, elbowing her partner. "We have to _go._" She looked pleadingly up at the adults. Dawn looked deep in thought and Dusk just smiled encouragingly. Night sighed. She looked over-

-and white domes went up over groups of classmates and parents, leaving the Cures in the middle and their allies walking over from the corner.

Millusion stepped in from the hallway and pocketed her pendulum. "You're welcome."

"What did you do this time, Omemi?" Hoshi crossed her arms.

"Nothing," Millusion said. "They just think Pretty Cure suddenly ran off to fight another Hidoinaa. Now we can all detransform and get back to trying to make the cultural festival not an absolute disaster. You might want to move so they don't get suspicious seeing you suddenly show up."

Dawn nodded and she and Dusk detransformed. Mia's eyes widened actually seeing it. Sunday and Night detransformed in turn. Old and new Cures looked at each other, taking in what they'd barely been able to process during the fight. What they were. Who they were.

Asa spoke first. "Ami-sensei, Ogata-san? I brought the communicator with me. After this, could we-" She stopped. "We need to contact the Elder."

Moonla poked her head out of Ami's transformation tape player. "The Elder of the Garden of Days ~muu?"

Sunbi did the same from Kirei's. "What do you need from her ~sasa?"

Asa took a deep breath. "I- We need to ask her something."

"The longer you stand around, the longer I have to hold this up," Millusion reminded.

Asa sweatdropped. "Okay, let's go!" She started to lead the group out the door as Emiru detransformed and the class went back to normal. Yoko watched Asa, wondering. The Elder...?

The four of them stepped out the door and stopped. In front of them stood a woman with blue hair in worn-out work clothes, standing out from the other parents. Asa's head shot back and she stared.

"Mom...?"

"I couldn't help but overhear," Asa's mother began, unreadable. Kirei started to say something; she held up her hand. "No, I... I should have expected something like this. I'd actually like to speak with all of you now - or at least when it's convenient."

"Now is fine," Kirei said. "I can understand what you're feeling, too."

"...Thank you. My name is Kawada Chikane."

"Ogata Kirei," she said. "You might already be acquainted with my partner, Nakata Ami-"

"-I'm the Lily Class' teacher," Ami added. "Let's go."

-

Asa's mind raced as they made their way to the deserted cafeteria kitchen and stood in a circle. She didn't look up.

"...so, uh, Mom." Asa shuffled her feet. "You're not something magical too, right? Because that would be..."

"Of course I'm not," Chikane said. "Asa, this isn't the time-"

"To be fair, in this case it's a valid question," Kirei interrupted. "I'm sorry, continue."

Chikane nodded. "Actually, I had a few things to address." She looked at Kirei and Ami. "First, the two of you are the same Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk, aren't you? I couldn't let you leave without thanking you."

"Thanking us?", Ami asked.

"Yes." She paused. "It was almost twenty-six years ago now when you two saved me. It was an inter-school training camp for a lot of extracurriculars - everybody went out to Gessou Village. I was wandering during my downtime when I suddenly saw a man in a white suit with a potion bottle and a yellow shirt. He was talking with a woman in a pink dress, I remember that much..."

"Suiyacross and Hitosalesque," Kirei mused. "That was when they double-teamed us while we were out of town. They thought they could get rid of us in one go and then focus on searching for someone in enough despair to want the world to end."

Ami looked over at Chikane. "You were the girl from Fubuki Town who was caught when the trees turned into Hidoinaa, weren't you?"

"...You still remember." She smiled a little. Asa's eyes widened, watching.

"Of course we do!" Ami sparkled. "The duty of Pretty Cure is to protect and save those who need us! The most important thing for that is friendship! Therefore, we consider everyone we fight for to be our friends! Because of that, we already consider you a friend, and everybody remembers their friends!"

Kirei looked amused. "What she's trying to say, Kawada-san, is that we do. Thank you for remembering us, too. It seems that your daughter has become a Pretty Cure as well, in her own time."

"As I've seen." Chikane turned her attention to Asa. Seeing her child fidget and look away, she sighed. "Asa, I'm not upset. I just need to apologize."

"Apologize?" Both Asa and Yoko blinked at that.

"I knew something must have been going on, but I had no idea what. I was never around to question it anyway." She looked at Asa and shook her head. "I won't say I'm not worried. In fact, I'm terrified for your safety and for your feelings. At the same time, I'm proud of you."

Asa took a deep breath. "...Thanks, Mom. Actually, I wanted to talk to about something... something really important." She looked at Yoko and then at the others. "But it isn't Cure business, so I guess it can wait."

Chikane shook her head. "I've let too much wait. If the rest of you would...?"

Ami bowed. "I've got school business to take care of, so I'm all right with leaving." She stepped out of the room.

Kirei and Yoko looked at each other, nodded, and bowed as well before stepping out.

Asa and her mother stood there in the kitchen. It felt like a long time before either of them spoke.

"...Asa," Chikane began.

Asa gulped. "...yeah?"

"Is there... this is hard to say." She paused. "Tell me about your friends."

Slow smile. "...Okay."

-

"You will all tell me exactly what led to the _incident_ we've just been through," Kainatrol seethed, nearly breaking her riding crop in half. "If you know what's good for you, it will all be the _truth_."

Tachimany, five girls, stretched out in unison. "Naturally-"

"-we had seen that-"

"-these two were about to-"

"-find a Moon Piece and-"

"-keep it for themselves."

Mireyes cleared her throat. "We are doing what is best for the Etherium's cause. Everybody here was gathered for the same reason. In order to erase a world, we need not only the Moon Dial, but two other things. One is the removal of the forces protecting the world, which in this case would be the two sets of Pretty Cure. The second is the wish of at least one resident of the world that said world be destroyed and their belief that there is nothing good left there. We are those residents. We all believed that nothing could be done but to destroy our worlds."

"And yet your world still lives, hag," Kainatrol said. "Imagine that."

"You will not call me that, Kainatrol." Mireyes stepped in front of Binbeat, who was making faces and rude noises.

"Oh, really?" Kainatrol straightened out her riding crop and twisted her smile. "Would you prefer _witch_?" She laughed as Mireyes clenched her aged fist and her eyes began to glow under her veil. "Tachimany, eliminate her and the brat."

Some of Tachimany raised their eyebrows. "You're acting-"

"-fairly suspicious yourself."

"As much as we trust you-"

"-and as talented as you are at what you do-"

"-you aren't in charge here."

Kainatrol laughed. First a little, but it grew. She grabbed her sides, the riding crop still between her fingers, and laughed louder, shaking her head. The Moon Dial appeared on its stand and she latched onto it.

"Oh, yes." Her eyes glowed a deep red. She caught one of Tachimany in the corner of their eye, just enough to focus. The body's eyes went blank. All of them turned to face her and removed their masks, dropping them on the ground. Their eyes glazed over as well. Kainatrol smirked. "Yes, I am."

"She can't do that!" Binbeat flew up to Mireyes' eye level and flailed his arms. "We can't affect each other with stuff like that!"

"The Moon Dial is, for all intents and purposes, hers." Mireyes swept her arm out. "Binbeat, get behind me and summon the organ. There's nothing else we can do now. If it's destruction she wants, she'll get it!"

-

"I suppose that's it, then." Kirei turned outside the door toward the rest of the cultural festival exhibits. Yoko grabbed her sleeve. She stopped.

"How did you know when you were in love?"

"Yoko-chan?"

Yoko blinked - hadn't it always been 'Nakayama Yoko-san'? Well, Ogata-san had the right to call her whatever she wanted, really. She shook her head. "I know, stupid question, we have more important things to worry about. Let's go."

"No, I don't mind." Kirei smiled. "Why do you ask?"

"If it's really okay to ask about..." Yoko took a deep breath. "You two were enemies, right? Did you ever worry about what would happen if people knew how you felt about someone you shouldn't have liked? I mean, people who would say it was bad."

Kirei blinked. "I don't know how much you know, Yoko-chan, but to be honest, that was the least of my worries at the time. It sounds like you've got love troubles yourself, though."

"I d-" Yoko couldn't manage it. She turned pink and crossed her arms. "All right, yes. I do. I think I'm in love with this person, but I was hoping I wasn't. It... really wouldn't be a good idea."

"I see." Kirei put her hand on her shoulder. "That sort of thing happens. Do you want to tell me about it?"

"...Do you promise not to tell anyone? Especially the other person and _especially_ my parents?"

"I don't even know your parents." Small laugh. "Of course I promise."

"...okay." Yoko tapped her foot on the ground nervously. "Because it's someone my parents wouldn't like. Too poor, too weird..." No one was watching. Okay. Good. Um. "...Too female."

"Asa-chan?"

Yoko nearly fell over.

"I suppose that's a yes."

If the resulting blush didn't confirm Kirei's suspicions, the following flailing exclamation completely unexpected of someone called "Ice Queen Nakayama" certainly did. At least, ice queens didn't normally switch into incoherent red-faced stammering with bits and pieces of "don't tell her, okay? You said you wouldn't!" and "my parents would _kill_ me! First they'd disown me and _then_ they'd kill me!", as far as Kirei knew. She smiled reassuringly at Yoko.

"It will be all right, Yoko-chan. We will all make sure of it, whatever you do. After all... it's like Ami said. You were intended to be our successors, but we're already partners, are we not?"

Yoko looked up, unable to stop shaking.

"...okay. Let's go talk to the Elder. Asa wanted to say something to her, and I think I know what it is."


	25. Death of the Future!

_As I said, I hated my world because there was nothing left for me there._

It was raining again. It was always raining on important days, wasn't it? The old woman sighed and shivered with her thin arms wrapped around her layers of clothes. She pulled her purple cloak around her and kept walking through the cobbled streets. The neighbourhood had been dirty and run-down even long ago, and now all the houses had been replaced, but even they were showing signs of wear - every house had broken windows, weeds taking over the front lawn, or towers of stockpiled margarine buckets inside the porch. She didn't spare most a second glance, not that it was obvious if she did, what with her eyes shadowed by the cloak.

_It wasn't always that way, though._

She dragged herself down the street and through a back alley, shoving aside a garbage can. As she walked, the buildings she passed got older, worse. These were the ones that nobody had even bothered replacing. Only squatters, if anyone, lived there. At the end, with a wary radius of weeds and mud separating it from the rest of the houses in town, was a wreck of a house. All the windows were boarded up, or had been at one point, but by this time, the boards had either rotted or fallen off, too. The house was crumbling, the root cellar doors busted open. The original paint on the sides had mostly long since peeled, covered in layers of graffiti where delinquents over the decades had run out of space and started to cover up their predecessors' work. Over the collapsed porch, there was now a gang symbol she didn't recognize drawn over a picture of a ghost, and under _that_ the faint traces of big red letters.

CURSED FAMILY.

_Once, I had something to live for, and something I would protect this world for._

She stood there for a moment, rain-chilled deeply. Finally, the old woman took a deep breath and pulled her feet up out of the mud. She trudged closer to the house and reached out a hand for the decomposing railing.

Footsteps. She stopped, fingers brushing the rail.

A boy burst out of the door, snagging his white and green school uniform on a loose nail and tearing it. He stumbled back and stared.

_Even when I lost that, I continued to search._

"What're you doing at my house?" He stared from behind his white eye mask.

The old woman stared, too, or she must have been. She coughed. "I wasn't aware anyone was still here."

"You mean you haven't seen her?" His face fell. "My little sister? We lived here a long time ago. Did someone- did they...?"

She turned her head down. A long pause followed. "So the Etherium is back."

"Huh?" Binbeat looked at his uniform. "Yeah, but - you knew we were- they were here the last time?"

Silence.

"Old lady?"

She turned up, still hiding her eyes. "There's nothing left here. Tell Eiender that someone wishes to speak with him."

_In the end, though, the Land of Tracks didn't have what I was living for anymore._

Present day. Mireyes stood in the Etherium, guarding Binbeat behind her. Her eyes started to glow purple behind the veil over her head. In front of them, Kainatrol's yellow eyes were glowing red as she burst out laughing at the assortment in front of her. One by one, Tachimany's bodies turned to face Kainatrol and dropped their eye masks. Their eyes glazed over, completely controlled.

Binbeat was flapping his arms, flying around Mireyes. "She can't do that! We can't affect each other with stuff like that!"

Mireyes put her arm out, shielding him back. "The Moon Dial is, for all intents and purposes, hers. Binbeat, get behind me and summon the organ. There's nothing else we can do now. If it's destruction she wants, she'll get it!"

Kainatrol stepped back and bended her riding crop, giving that insufferable smirk. "Of course I will, crone. Sooner or later, I get what I want, or no one does. Either way, I win."

Three of Tachimany's bodies immediately lunged at Mireyes. She ducked and blasted all three of them away, moving before they even started.

"Not this time."

-  
><em>Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~<em>  
>Episode 23: Death of the Future! The Last Two Moon Pieces!<p>

It took a few minutes if you looked at the clock, but from the way things dragged on, it had to have been more than that. Finally, Kawada Asa returned to the Lily Class' room, and the cultural festival continued from there. Cure business was not brought up again until the festival had closed up shop and all of the townspeople and parents had gone home. As the other students were leaving, Asa and Yoko took the cleaning duty keys and entered the Visual Media Club's room.

Nakata Ami waved, setting the Moon Piece up in the communicator on a TV stand. "Hello! I'm sorry this took so long, but we do have social obligations as well. After all, it's our duty to be good citizens and improve the world at school as much as it is to protect the world with our abilities!"

"Classic Ami-sensei," Omemi Emiru remarked. "Kawada, Nakayama. Nice to see the stars of this operation show their faces."

"You didn't have to come, Omemi." Kondou Hoshi crosed her arms and frowned from the other side of the room.

"I know," Emiru shrugged. "Make no mistake, I know full well that I'm not part of your little secret world-saving club. Call it being a good citizen, right, Ami-sensei?"

Hoshi might be heard mumbling about stupid girls who sucked up to adults to avoid getting called on their antics, not that "antics" was the word she would have used.

Asa and Yoko moved into the circle, Yoko shutting and locking the door behind her.

"All right," Yoko said, with a deep breath. "let's contact the Elder. Are you sure we need to do this, Asa?"

"Yeah." Asa nodded. "I get the feeling we're going to need to go into the Etherium and end this, and we'll have to do it soon. Before that, I - no, we all have to get some answers."

Ogata Kirei drew out her pink transformation tape player and looked between it and Asa's orange transformation phone. She nodded. "I think most of us can relate to that. Sunbi?"

A fuzzy white creature - Sunbi, right, Starry's father and Kirei's fairy partner - popped out of the cassette player and landed on the TV stand. He hit the switch and hopped off the stand onto a tall stool set up in front of it. Moonla was already standing on another stool right next to it.

The metal contraption started to whirr, the small satellite dishes moved, and the TV screen in the middle popped and worked itself to life. The image showed the same chamber as before, the rainbow temple of the Moon Dial, with black stars all over the walls. A small old woman appeared with a staff as tall as she was and looked straight at the camera.

"Hello," she greeted. "I've been expecting your call. I recognize some of you. Truth be told, however, I didn't expect quite so many. I am the Elder of the Garden of Days."

Asa bowed. "I'm Kawada Asa. This is Nakayama Yoko. We're Pretty Cure along with Ami-sensei and Ogata-san. Everyone else is here to help - they're all friends." She had that look of resolve again, Yoko noted. "Elder, things are getting really serious. Like, building-up-to-the-finale serious. We have something really important to ask you."

Yoko looked between Asa and the screen.

The Elder nodded slowly. "I will do what I can to answer your question, Kawada Asa. The Etherium is beginning to move differently. I'm sure you noticed when you were there. The faint structure that has built up in the Etherium's core for the safety of their agents, who normally dare not venture outside of that core without the Moon Dial, has begun to erase itself. We are preparing for an attack of desperation, but at the same time, the Ruler of Time has been acting differently."

"That's because he's gone ~muu." Moonla bowed to the Elder. "The one in control of the Etherium now is the Feared Tamer, Kainatrol ~muu."

"She took over at some point," Sunbi added with his own bow, "probably when you sent us to meet up with Kirei and Ami ~sasa."

The Elder frowned. "I see." Her grip shifted on her staff. "Kawada Asa... what is your question?"

Asa took a deep breath. "Why didn't you bring back the erased worlds?"

Gasps and frowns went around the room. The Elder was silent. Asa kept looking at the screen, breathing in and out, blocking out the stares from around her.

"No offense, Elder," she continued. "But since the Garden of Days had the Moon Dial after Ami-sensei and Ogata-san took it from the Etherium, you were supposed to protect all the worlds, right? What about the worlds that were already gone?"

The Elder didn't move. "Those worlds were erased, Kawada Asa. I'm very sorry. There isn't, and can't be, anything left of them."

"...That's wrong." Asa shook, fidgeting with her transformation phone. "I'm sorry to question you, Elder, but there is something left. Outside of the core of the Etherium, there's a lot of white space that goes on forever in every direction. You said it yourself, even they never go out there. In that space, there are these things, these..."

"Echoes." Kirei cut in, eyes wide. "You know about them?"

"We saw them!" Asa nodded. "Elder, everyone, please tell us. Why didn't you go in and save them?"

The Elder shook her head. "Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk may have won, but it was a difficult victory. It was and is far too dangerous to venture into the Etherium's territory. As I stated, the Etherium agents themselves don't even go into the void outside the core for their own safety, but they'd strike back if we were to use the Moon Dial to steal back their territory. As well, we don't even know if the Moon Dial would enable us to restore something that's already been erased. If we failed, all we would have done would be to have provoked them."

"But-"

"The victory Dawn and Dusk won could only be assuredly kept if the Garden of Days stayed on the defensive. Had we made any moves past retrieving the Moon Dial, it would have been a disaster."

Asa froze. She breathed in and out, holding her transformation phone tightly, looking around at the room's averted gazes - Yoko. Yoko locked eyes with her and stepped over to her side. Asa bit her lip; Yoko nodded.

Asa continued.

"Elder, even if it's dangerous, it's right. Because it's right, it's worth it." Her eyes turned back to the screen. "Every world, no matter how painful it is to live in, also has happy things that take away the pain. Every life, even if it hurts, has something that makes that life worth living. I can't even count how many lives the Etherium has erased like they were never lived at all. But isn't that why we're against them in the first place? The world - every world, not just the Land of Legends, not just the Garden of Days - deserves, in the end, to exist."

Yoko looked sad for a moment. She steeled herself, took Asa's trembling hand, and while Asa looked up at her, delivered the communicator screen a full-blast Ice Queen Nakayama glare.

The Elder brought her staff in front of her. Paused. Sighed.

"You certainly resemble your predecessors."

Kirei shook her head. "These two decided who they were on their own. They're strong, Elder. We believe in them."

Asa gave a little smile. The Elder slowly nodded.

"Do you, then, intend to take the fight to the Etherium?"

"I think it's the only thing we can do." Asa looked back at her partner. "Yoko?"

"...you're right," Yoko said. "If we don't, they'll erase our world, too."

-

Tachimany's sixth form advanced, facing forward with no direction in their lightless eyes. Mireyes dodged seconds before one of them brought their axe down where she was, then quickly stepped back out of the way of an axe swipe from another one of the mind-controlled lumberjacks. Binbeat, in the back, pounded the keys of the organ, and Mireyes' steps, guided by Future Sight and the purple glow behind her veil, moved away from every one of the small resulting explosions.

"Kainatrol!"

Mireyes stepped back and reached out her hand. A small magic circle drew itself in the air in front of her. Mireyes brought back her hand and then shot it back out, sending a blast of force strong enough to knock the six of Tachimany over. She advanced past them and towards Kainatrol.

"You're thinning out your own numbers. Have you finally lost your grip on reality?"

Kainatrol drew up a red shield between them. "Reality is mine, old woman. Mine to erase. Mine to control. Why should I care? If they win, I'm rid of you and the brat and your ill-guided mutiny. If you win, well, Tachimany lived out their purpose. Once they got suspicious of me, I stopped needing them. The last thing they can do for me is to wipe you out of my sight."

Mireyes blasted the shield to no effect. Kainatrol laughed, holding onto the Moon Dial.

"As long as I have this, I can do what I want. Oh, look behind you."

Mireyes had already turned and quickly threw up a shield of her own. Tachimany had gotten up and their assassin form leapt for her; the shield knocked the eleven of them back to the ground.

"Come on!" Binbeat kept playing the organ. "We can beat 'em, old lady!"

Mireyes' shield went down and she turned back to Kainatrol. "Do you expect to fight all of your battles for yourself after this? There's nobody else left for you."

"I've told you before, I don't _fight._" Kainatrol adjusted her eye mask. 'If I want somebody to fight for me, I can just get someone. It isn't too much of a problem. After all... there are traces of what happened here."

"What happened in the Etherium...?"

"Mireeeyes," Binbeat whined. "She's got a stick up her butt again and she's being stupid. We gotta just fight."

"Have fun with that." Kainatrol stood behind the Moon Dial. "Oh, Tachimany... you know that form you haven't used in years, right?"

Mireyes spun back toward Tachimany. "Thirteen?"

"We..." Tachimany shifted back to their first form, and the single body held his head, eyes back to normal. "We can't. Not now, we-"

"You will. You'll do it now." Kainatrol glared, glowing bright red. Tachimany let go of their head and went blank again. They shifted into the form of thirteen people, each body a copy of their original body that they were trapped in when they lived in their home world.

"It... hurts."

Mireyes stepped back. "Binbeat, watch out!"

"It hurts."

"The Field of Words hurts."

"The Land of Legends hurts."

"The Etherium hurts."

"Life."

"Life hurts."

"It hurts to live."

"We have to fight back."

"Life hurts."

"Hurt life."

"Destroy it."

Every one of them drew out a prop sword, some pointed at the old woman, some at the young boy.

"Destroy anything in our way."

Kainatrol laughed a little. "If you two survive, you might see my contingency plan. Until then..." She took her shield down and teleported out with the Moon Dial.

Even with Future Sight, Mireyes and Binbeat had no time to block the first strike.

-

"Hold up, hold up." Hoshi put her hands on her hips. "You two might have a good point, but Crazy McRidingCrop jacked your Moon Pieces back in Gessou Village, remember? Counting the one from the clock tower and the one Ogata-san passed off to Ogata the younger, plus the two you guys already had, that's just four Moon Pieces. There are four Pretty Cures, yeah, but the rest of us aren't just gonna do nothing, and the Elder just said the white void place we hit up last time is breaking apart so the inside's just as dangerous as the outside without a Moon Piece."

"We couldn't have one per person even if we had the last two missing ones, Kondou," Emiru shrugged. "We'll just have to share them around. Or leave the plain regular people behind..."

Hoshi glared. "Funny seeing you being proud of not being a plain regular person when you aren't, considering how you threw your little tantrum about 'freaks' when you were, _Omemi._"

"Omemi-san, Kondou-san!" Ami-sensei stepped between them. "Try to get along, at the very least for the sake of a harmonious future!"

Hoshi sighed and looked away from Emiru. "Fine. But aside from that, my concern still stands, you know."

The Elder cleared her throat. "Actually, you don't have four."

"What?" Asa blinked. "Of course we do."

"Swipe your Storage Cards," said the Elder.

Asa and Yoko slowly complied as Yoko reluctantly let go of her partner's wrist; Asa released one, Yoko two. They set their Moon Pieces on the nearest desk.

Asa frowned. "The fourth one's in the communicator-"

The Elder shook her head. "Now... scan each other's transformation devices."

The room was silent, static, confused. Haltingly, Yoko drew out the Scan Card and pointed her phone at Asa's. She swiped the card.

The phone glowed. It started to change - something was drawn out of it. It quickly took shape, the size of a small fist, smooth on one end and jagged everywhere else, before the light pulled off of the item. Yoko and Asa scrambled to catch it, awkwardly grabbing it together. It was a shiny black Moon Piece, all right, marked with the serial number VII.

"What?"

"You mean..."

Asa's transformation phone changed shape and the light aura burst off of it. It was now flat, thin, with a sun-shaped camera at the top and a bright orange casing. Her cards now changed as well, showing a box to scan at the back instead of a barcode at the bottom.

Kirei's eyes widened. "Elder, did you always know the last two Moon Pieces were in their transformation devices?"

The Elder nodded again. "I split the Moon Dial and scattered the pieces to buy them time to become strong enough to fight. However, there was still a chance that the Etherium would have gathered the Moon Pieces first. To prevent that, I embedded two pieces into the phones. What you're seeing now is the phone's new shape, optimized for the present day."

"So they're modern phones in order to blend in, just like ours are portable cassette players because those blended in when we first got them!" Ami clasped her hands together. "I did wonder about that."

Asa brightened. "Finale powerups?"

"...I've never heard that term before, but something like that," said the Elder. "Scan your partner's phone now."

Asa let go of the Moon Piece, still in Yoko's hand so it wouldn't drop, and complied. The same thing happened to Yoko's phone, drawing out the Moon Piece with the serial number I and transforming the phone itself. They put the two Moon Pieces down with the others.

"Now what?" Yoko looked at the assortment. "We're almost even with the Etherium. We're still going to need to get there."

"I can still teleport in," Emiru interjected.

"As can I," added Mia's father. "But we may need more than six Moon Pieces and a haphazard assortment of people. I know Kainatrol. I have no idea what she'll stop at, if anything, and if the Etherium's volatile, we'll need extra measures."

"Elder ~muu?", Moonla asked.

The Elder looked down at the display. "What is it, Moonla?"

"Do you still have _that_ ~muu?"

Sunbi's ears twitched. "Do you mean the Eclipse Transformer ~sasa?"

Moonla nodded. "We can use that ~muu."

Starry looked up at his parents. "What's the Eclipse Transformer ~susu?"

The Elder rubbed her chin. "The Eclipse Transformer is an item we created here in the Garden of Days. It's able to merge with a physical item and make that item into what the user wishes. However..."

"You were going to use it to make a backup for the Moon Dial, weren't you?" Ami cut in. "What happened to that?"

"That's just it," said the Elder. "The testing didn't work. The Eclipse Transformer can only be used to make something we understand completely, but it didn't even turn into a part to fit with the other materials. The Moon Dial is too special. We can't make another."

"Science education is not given the funding it needs even there," Ami sighed. "The world, no, the universe is in dire straits. If only those who teach the youth were given more respect and opportunities-"

"Ami," Kirei said, "we see your point, but what are we going to do now?" She looked at Moonla. "If the Eclipse Transformer didn't work, what do you suggest we use it for?"

"Maybe the Moon Dial is too special, but we can still use it to make something that will help us ~muu."

Yoko thought. "Something to make us stronger?"

"What we need," said Tomokazu, "is something that will not only safely transport the entire party to the Etherium and keep us safe, but something that will give us an advantage in the fight."

"The Eclipse Transformer channels your feelings and bonds into power, just like Pretty Cure's abilities," the Elder explained. "If I send it to you, the item you create must take that into account. Also, in order for it to work properly, the item must be something that you know inside and out. Do you have an idea that will work?"

"...I do," Asa said. "Ami-sensei, you still have all our class notes from our partner project a couple months ago, right?"

"They're in my desk," Ami said. "Do you need them?"

"We will. Yoko, you know more about cars than anyone in town, don't you?"

Yoko turned pink. "I wouldn't go _that_ far, but I know a lot."

"That's a yes. Ogata-san?"

Kirei blinked. "Yes?"

"Can we borrow your van?"

Hoshi stared. "Tell me this isn't going where I think it's going."

Asa grinned. "Come on, Hoshi. It's the one thing I know better than anything else."

"You're building the DaiVan, aren't you."

"Yup."

-

There was no real sense of place in the Etherium at the best of times, aside from a general order that said this was where the core room was, that was where the quarters were, and not to go past this or that wall. Right now, for a given value of relative time, they barely had even that. Still glowing with power, power that would now work when she was away from those she was controlling, Kainatrol laughed as she set down the Moon Dial on its stand and lay her hands on it.

"Find the echo," she commanded it. "Find where those two were destroyed."

She concentrated. A red magic circle began to form under her feet as she began to send power into the Moon Dial.

Something snapped against her. Kainatrol stumbled, the beginnings of her spell broken, and spun around. She touched her face where the scarf-whip had just lashed her.

"I thought you might show up sooner or later. Let me guess: you're joining the parade of people who feel the need to tell me I've crossed the line."

Before her was Mekuramast, drawing the scarves back into his sleeve.

"You crossed that over a hundred years ago, Kainatrol."

He shot an array of playing cards at her. She blocked with her light shield and blasted him with the Moon Dial, sending him to the ground.

"I'm surprised you're still trying, Kairos." She laughed. "Good timing, though. I've proved your little echo theory."

He went pale. Said nothing. She continued.

"Oh, you can't keep anything from me. Even with just over half the Moon Pieces, I'm powerful enough here. That's what you were living for, wasn't it?"

Mekuramast gripped his wand. "Don't..."

"That's what you've been holding on for all this time, like a stubborn bug hiding from a fly swatter. You just wanted another chance."

Kainatrol smirked and put her hands on the Moon Dial. Again, she focused, and again, it glowed. As Mekuramast fought to get to his feet, two figures formed in the light.

"You just wanted to bring sweet, selfish Kore back. I have other uses for the Moon Dial. Once I get all the other pieces from those girls, I'll eradicate every last trace of the Garden of Rings, and you won't ever get that chance of yours. Before that, though, I'm bringing myself back some reliable help."

The light burst off of the two figures as Kainatrol loomed.

-

To Asa's credit, her plan worked. Once they got into the parking lot and Kirei brought the van over, Yoko was easily able to install the Eclipse Transformer in place of the engine. With Ami's data and Asa's own expertise on all things _DaiFighter_, it seamlessly transformed itself and integrated into the van. Then the van itself glowed with a low hum.

"It really does work ~sasa!" Sunbi clapped his little paws.

"Of course it does," Kirei said. "Just hold on..."

Asa set a fixed stare on the van as if that would help it transform faster. As a colourful aura washed over it, it started to shift, becoming a little shorter, a little wider, differently-shaped. The light burst off of the van, raining sparkles around the gathered group.

Asa's stare slowly turned into a bright, large smile.

The van was now bright red, with DaiFighter's blocky "DF" insignia on each side and the front. There were doors at the sides in the front and back, various designs on the windows, and panels that would open up to reveal all sorts of toyetic features like rockets or lasers or something of that nature. There was a ladder affixed to the side. The whole vehicle gleamed with newness in the sunset.

"This... is... awesome!" She pumped her fists in the air. "It actually worked! Come on, Yoko, let's see if it has the vending machine inside!"

Yoko hesitated. "...Sure. I have to call my parents, though. I'll be right back, okay?" She took out her real phone and dashed behind a tree.

Asa blinked and moved to follow. Kirei shook her head.

Yoko took a deep breath and dialed. Her mother took a few rings to pick up. "Nakayama residence."

"Mom? It's me, Yoko." She pressed her back against the tree for support. "...I'm going to be out late tonight, okay? Don't worry, I'm with my friends."

"Which friends?"

A small sigh. "Yukari. Asa - uh, and Kondou-san, Omemi-san, and Ogata-san, too. Ogata-san's parents are there," she said, speeding up after the mention of Asa.

Her mother paused to think it over. "All right. Stay very close to your friends and don't do anything dangerous, okay? And don't go to Kawada-san's apartment if she asks. I know she's a good friend of yours and I know she can't help it, but I don't want you going to that part of town."

Yoko winced. "Okay, Mom. I won't."

"You know we just want you to be safe, Yoko. You and Takashi both. Keep me updated, all right? We worry."

"Okay," Yoko said. "I'll see you." She ended the call and fumbled with her phone, nearly dropping it as she stuffed it back into her bag. Shaking her head, she stepped away from the tree and brushed pieces of bark out of her hair before walking back.

"That didn't take long!" Asa waved, but her smile faded when she saw Yoko frowning. "What's wrong?"

"...I'll tell you later." Yoko pulled herself into the back of the van and shut the door behind her.

"Geez," Asa grumbled, crossing her arms. "I said she could tell me anything."

Yukari looked at Asa, and then to a fuming Hoshi, and then to the adults looking somber and understanding. Hoshi shot a threatening look at Emiru before she could even say anything.

Inside the van, Yoko sighed and looked around. It was a lot bigger on the inside. There was space for everyone to sit (with seatbelts, thankfully, she noted) and it was now tall enough to walk around in, even though it looked perfectly van-shaped on the outside. This thing did break the laws of physics regularly, from what she'd learned from Asa and their research on the project before they narrowed the focus down, so that made some sense in a paradoxical manner. There was some sort of magical-looking apparatus in the centre that probably had something to do with the fact that the van 'ran on burning spirit', there was space for wings to fold out of the sides of the van, and yes, there was a very well-secured vending machine on the inside. It sold water, cookies, chocolate bars Yoko had never heard of, and some kind of pink energy drink called Brave Fight.

Yoko sat down and rested her head against the tall back of the seat.

"You wouldn't worry if I told you everything," she said to an empty van. "You'd disown me."

-

Tahimany converged on Mireyes, still blank with mind control. Even as she was predicting their strikes, moving away just in time, some of them still landed hits on her. She clutched her arm and staggered back.

"Old lady!" Binbeat called out. He moved to get up from the organ.

"Stay there!", Mireyes commanded without looking. "Just play the song. Don't risk yourself!"

Binbeat hesitated. He watched her step away, try to shove off an attacking body. It occurred to him that she really was old. They descended upon her. He slammed the keys of the organ in the next note, and an explosion above them knocked everyone aside. Mireyes stayed on her feet, having predicted the blast. She followed up with a wave of energy to knock them away.

Both sides were worn down, injured, aching. Mireyes' breathing was more staggered. She watched Tachimany drag themselves to their feet. One of them couldn't get up; another turned to offer their hand.

She watched.

"She's weakening, isn't she..."

They looked over in unison. Mireyes kept concentrating and kept moving. She couldn't afford not to. Tachimany raised their weapons and moved out in a web to strike at her.

"We must obey-"

"-we have no choice."

"We must destroy-"

"-destroy everything, because-"

"-life is painful."

One of them knocked Mireyes to the floor. Five others pointed their swords at her.

"Mireyes!", Binbeat cried.

"Play!", she reminded. She breathed, clenched her shaky, thin fists, tried to stand. "Tachimany helped each other up. Kainatrol wouldn't have ordered that. She doesn't understand it. She still has control, but she's concentrating on something else. She's weakening!"

One of Tachimany's mind-controlled bodies kicked her down. Another went for her with their sword, but with the magic circle of Future Sight underneath her, she rolled to the side and grabbed the sword from their hand. She threw the sword to the side and shot out her hands, one to each side. There was a sudden flash of light. Tachimany's bodies flew to the side, disappearing, but regenerating as more still remained.

Binbeat's eyes widened.

He played the organ. The ruined, fading Etherium was filled with explosions. Mireyes got to her feet and dodged every one. Some of them hit the mind-controlled Tachimany, some didn't but Mireyes' energy attacks did. The fight continued. So did the song.

"Don't worry, Binbeat."

Mireyes dodged a sword.

"We're not going to lose."

She vapourized another body, another victim of the one controlling them.

"I refuse."

As she moved, another Tachimany body struck her down with the sword. She collapsed. Coughed. Shook.

"Because I have always..."

Her eyes stopped glowing behind her shawl, and the magic circle underneath her disappeared. She concentrated as her opponents readied their swords. White light washed over her entire body, grew larger, outshining even the white void around them. Tachimany stood in circles around circles. At once, they struck out at her.

"...had someone to live for!"

The light burst off of her. It pressed against them, washed through them, just as they sent out their own energy. Binbeat shook, hands just above the organ keys, unable to play or do anything but stare. Gold and white fought for a second that felt like forever.

The energy blasted out. Bodies flew in all directions. One vapourized from the blast before it could hit Binbeat. He stared.

The eyes of each of the thirteen bodies brightened with freedom just before they disappeared. Two had fallen just a few meters away, as little as relative space mattered. They slowly reached for each other's hands.

"The thirteen of us..."

"...we weren't alone." They looked at each other as their bodies began to disappear like the rest.

"Were we?"

"We weren't."

"Ever."

"We couldn't be..."

"Kainatrol never understood that."

"She used us..."

"...and left us to die."

They struggled to turn their heads to Binbeat, then to Mireyes.

"Thank you."

They closed their eyes at once and vanished with the rest.

The light faded. Mireyes was still in the centre, collapsed on the ground. Binbeat finally forced himself to his feet and scrambled over. He slipped into a hole of erased floor, only to fly out and zip over the rest of the way in the air, only landing when he was at the old woman's side.

"Old lady!" He shook her. "Old lady, we won, right?"

Mireyes smiled a little. She rolled over onto her back to face him. Her head covering slipped off of her face. Her eyes were closed. Binbeat grabbed her shoulders and shook her again.

"Old lady?"

"I'm here," her aged voice cracked. "We did win, for now... Be careful, Binbeat. She's still out there, and she'll notice this sooner or later."

"C'mon," he said, trying to drag her to her feet. "Then we gotta go."

"No," she said. "You have to. This is all I can do for you."

He stopped, not letting go. "Mireyes?"

She paused. Then she slowly opened her eyes. Binbeat's jaw dropped as he took in the face in front of him. Mireyes had blank white eyes.

"I needed to protect you... because I failed you before, big brother."

Binbeat stared. "No way. No way, Andante? You're Andante?"

Slow nod. "Yes, Binbeat - big brother. There were a lot of things that I never did tell you when we were living in the Land of Tracks. I was not a witch, like they said I was, but I was something different. I was... something closer to what Pretty Cure are. Certainly not the same thing - after all, Pretty Cure are the Land of Legends' heroes. But I prevented the Etherium from erasing our world. Things were different then."

The boy took this in. "But how come? Our world sucked. Why'd you do anything for that place?"

"You know that I've said before that you're too young to understand..." She laughed. "Although you're still older than I am, aren't you, in the end? Yes, our world caused us pain, but I believed there was still good in it, back then. I had you, big brother, and the search for our parents, and a purpose in protecting the world. But when I defeated the Etherium and drove them back, you went with them. I had no choice but to run away, like you warned me, when the town came for me. I continued to search, but my powers could not do as much without your help. I suppose it is true that people need other people."

Binbeat was shaking, even if he'd deny it. "Did... did you ever find out what happened to Mom and Dad?"

She sighed. "They couldn't live forever, Binbeat. I never found them. One day,my song couldn't find them anymore, and that was it. I knew you were still alive, and that was all I was living for, until I found you again. I wasn't even upset that you'd joined my enemies. By then, I was a different person. I thought maybe the world _should_ have been destroyed." Cough. "That's why..."

"C'mon, get up," Binbeat said. He went to grab her and stared. Her body was starting to fade away too.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I lost my faith in the world, and could no longer call myself Andante. I hope I've made up for it now."

"But I ditched!" He rubbed his eyes. "I ran away and didn't even take you! If none of that happened..."

"It's all right." Mireyes reached up and patted him on the head. "Run. She'll be back soon."

Binbeat nodded but didn't leave, only clinging to his sister. She looked around the room that was erasing itself, where Tachimany's bodies had fallen and disappeared.

"Big brother, thank you. Maybe in some other world, things could have been better." Mireyes closed her eyes. "Or... maybe we could have simply made the most of the ones we were in."

And then, the trembling child was only hugging the air in front of him.

-

"All right, everyone." Asa stood up inside the DaiVan. "We need to get ready and then we need to concentrate and let our energy flow into the van to get it to work. It's easy enough! I know everyone here has the burning spirit of a hero," she said completely sincerely.

"I commend you on your faith!" Ami-sensei applauded. "A courageous spirit and belief in your friends will lead us toward a bright future!"

Hoshi facepalmed. "Why me?"

Asa offered her hand out. "Come on, Yoko! Let's go."

Yoko let out a small sigh and got up. "...Okay."

"With more energy!" Asa went over and grabbed her arm. She dragged Yoko to the centre, where that magic-looking stone-thing was (Yoko _really_ had to ask what it was supposed to be). With a smile, Asa let go and used her new transformation phone to scan her Moon Card. Yoko hesitated and did the same. They grasped each other's hands.

"Dual Infinite Phase!"

The adults nodded at each other. Kirei and Ami loaded their card-cassettes into their transformation players and pressed play before taking each other's hands as well.

"Dual Eternal Repetition!"

Tomokazu held his hand out to the air and his eye mask appeared. When he put it on, light covered him and changed his clothes into his black and navy suit, summoning his throwing knives.

"Here goes."

Emiru took her glasses off and turned them into her own eye mask. She put it on and was similarly awash in light that colour-swapped her school uniform.

"I suppose I may as well."

Hoshi, Yukari, and Mia stood together at the back. Energy flowed from them into the array at the centre, followed by the energy that everybody else sent in. Lights flashed in the DaiVan and it started to move. Move through dimensions.

They emerged in the Etherium in front of two figures. The van stopped in front of the two, who looked up.

"This must be them." The voice was a woman's; she wore a short skirt and tight top adorned with jingling jewels, and she rested one hand on her hip, the other twirling the end of her pink hair. "It's been a long time, hasn't it?"

"Wonderful, dear, wonderful!" The other, a man with a yellow-trimmed coat, put one arm around her and gestured wildly with the other. "Now that she's brought us back, we can go for round two against those little girls!"

The woman summoned a giant martini glass as tall as she was and stepped forward, resting one hand on it. "With my dance and your potions, we can't lose."

The man gave a wide, confident grin and summoned a bottle of some sort of liquid. "Naturally."


	26. Blue Moon

_When Mom found out about us, what else could I do?_

Earlier in this long day, everyone had crammed into the cafeteria kitchen - Kawada Asa and Nakayama Yoko, the current Pretty Cure team; Kondou Hoshi, Okamoto Yukari, and Ogata Mia, their friends; Omemi Emiru, a classmate who no longer quite counted herself as an enemy; Starry, their dedicated friend from the Garden of Days, and Sunbi and Moonla, his parents who worked with the Elder; Mia's mother, Ogata Kirei, and the homeroom teacher, Nakata Ami, old friends and previous Pretty Cures out of retirement. With them had been Kawada Chikane, Asa's mother, the busy woman with the weathered face.

The discussion had been awkward at first, with "Asa, this isn't the time" cutting in from every voice she thought would say it, but it calmed. Asa stared, not talking, when her mother related the story of how she believed in Pretty Cure all along because she'd met them - Dawn and Dusk, Ogata-san and Ami-sensei, that was, when they were young and Asa's mother had been attacked by Hidoinaa. When her mother looked at her, Asa turned to look anywhere else.

"Asa, I'm not upset," Chikane sighed. "I just need to apologize."

_I was scared, but it turned out all right._

Asa blinked at her. "Apologize?" She barely realized that Yoko, beside her, had said the same thing at the same time.

Chikane gave a small nod and looked at them. "I knew something must have been going on, but I had no idea what. I was never around to question it anyway. I won't say I'm not worried. In fact, I'm terrified for your safety and for your feelings. At the same time, I'm proud of you."

This was... Asa had to breathe and process all of this. She knew her mother loved her, she really did. At the same time, they never saw each other, and when they did it was usually 'I'm busy' or 'Don't bother the neighbours' or 'We can talk about this later'. But she was there. She'd come to the cultural festival, late or not. She'd walked in just when they were detransforming and she'd been shocked, yes, but it seemed now that she was taking it well. Worrying was understandable. Worrying about her safety, that made sense, even if Asa had proven to be good at this magical girl business. Worrying about her feelings...

Asa knew she had to speak.

"...Thanks, Mom. Actually, I wanted to talk to about something... something really important." Her eyes lingered on Yoko before quickly scanning the others and going back to her mother. "But it isn't Cure business, so I guess it can wait."

Her mother refused. "I've let too much wait."

They sent the others out of the room to clean up their business after the fiasco earlier with the Etherium. Even Starry had gone into Yoko's phone. It was just Kawada Asa and Kawada Chikane and the empty kitchen and the setting sun.

_Maybe sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes it does but you still have a reason to be scared._

"...Asa."

"...yeah?"

Asa saw Chikane hesitate just like she must have been. Somehow, it put her at ease even as it made her shiver and brought one nervous thought to the front of her mind.

"Is there... this is hard to say. ...Tell me about your friends."

"...Okay." Asa took a deep breath and smiled slowly. "My friends... Mia wasn't always nice, but she was just scared. She's the kind of person you want to protect, but she can do things to help, too, even if she doesn't fight or do anything cool. Yukari is kind of like that, too. She's strong, though she doesn't fight. She's actually pretty nice - she holds us together most of the time."

Chikane nodded along. "You seem like good friends now. What about the others?"

"Starry is that little fairy creature you saw. He's always been helpful to us, and his mom and dad were Ogata-san's and Ami-sensei's partners back in the day. He comes from another world - Yoko and I trade off times when he stays over at either of our houses." A nervous laugh. "You already know Hoshi. She's a little protective... okay, a lot." Asa rubbed the back of her head, still looking around the room like something else would pop up. "She has her heart in the right place, though. She used to be against me being a Pretty Cure or even talking to Yoko, but a lot of things happened."

"By 'Yoko', you mean... Yamanaka Yoko-san, is that her name? Your partner, right?"

Asa fidgeted with the end of her hair. "Actually, it's Nakayama. I mixed it up when I first met her, too."

Chikane gave a small sigh, but when Asa looked over, she seemed to be smiling. "Tell me about her."

_I can be scared. Ashamed. Embarrassed. Even though it doesn't seem like it, because I always still act like myself._

"Okay." Asa breathed in. "Yoko and I are Pretty Cure, so even though she used to scare me, I kept wanting to be her friend. It was destiny, right? I know you think that kind of stuff is dumb, but- well, it's just how it is. Um."

"No, keep going." Chikane shook her head. "I know I haven't been as encouraging as I should be with things like that. You won't want to hear this, but I worry, I always worry that you're different and you're obsessed and you drive people off." She frowned as Asa cringed. "But things really have worked out for you. I should have realized, or been there to see. You have friends, Asa, and not like the seniors in martial arts class in Fubuki Town when you were little. The people you've been friends with over the past few months seem to like you very much."

Asa nodded, even while she was shaking. "Yeah. I believe in them. Even Omemi-san I'd consider a friend, and she used to be pretty bad. She's still not very nice, and she doesn't hang around with us a lot, but we can depend on her for things like this. She doesn't want the world to end, Mom. She just wants to have friends."

"I see I'll need more explanation than you probably have time for." Chikane smiled weakly. "I do have confidence in you. You and Nakayama-san are Pretty Cure, after all. You've come this far, and the two of you seem very close."

"Thanks, Mom." Asa shifted on her feet. "I know we can do it, too. Yoko's a great person, and everyone else is, too."

A thought came to Chikane. "I'm sorry, I interrupted you earlier when you were talking about Nakayama-san... Can you tell me about her, Asa?"

"Yoko is a good person," Asa repeated. "A little intimidating, but that just means she's strong and there's nothing wrong with not being good with people. She's someone I can trust. Someone I believe in. Someone I want to protect, and someone I'm glad to have protecting me when I need it. I don't even really understand how I feel, or what she is to me, but I know she's my most important person!"

There was another long silence as the words left Asa's lips and that same nervous thought, that feeling, hit her like a punch from the inside. Chikane's eyes widened just like Asa's did whenever she realized something. She stepped forward and, before Asa could react, hugged her daughter tightly.

"Oh, Asa," she said. "I'm sorry."

Asa blinked a few times. "Mom...?"

"Keep going and trust yourself, Asa," she said. "I know I haven't always understood you and I haven't always been there for you. Even though the reason I'm always working is so that I can make things better for you, it means that I wasn't there for any of this. You're growing up, Asa. You're still the same you, and you may always be the same you, but you're growing up."

Asa was already hugging her mother back before she realized it. "I am?"

"You are," Chikane said. "Being grown up really doesn't mean outgrowing things that were meant for children. I remember when you always used to try and show me proof that adults watched your superhero shows too, and I just said that they were all either perverts or mentally stunted. But even so, you're none of those things. You're just Asa. I should really know better, shouldn't I?" She pulled back and gave a teary smile. "I know what it's like to be told how to feel."

_But I'm still trying my best. Just like Yoko. Just like all of us._

Present day. They'd left Asa's mother behind and gathered in their new vehicle, a perfect replica of the DaiVan that let them bust into the Etherium. Cure Sunday and Cure Night climbed out of the back of the van.

"Why'd we stop?" Sunday looked around, Night following a few steps behind her.

Cure Dawn opened the driver's door and climbed out with Devance. "Watch out! We know those two!"

In front of the van stood two people. A woman in a short, tight dancing outfit covered in jewels and bells laid one hand on a giant martini glass, and a slick man in a white suit and yellow shirt drew labelled potions out of his yellow-trimmed coat.

"Of course you know us!" The man's voice boomed and he made a sweeping gesture. "Returned from oblivion as we were, our names are still the ones on everyone's minds. Surely you haven't forgotten my vast array of poisons and remedies?"

"Or my dance," the woman said, grabbing the stem of the glass and spinning around it fluidly. A shock of wind swept out as she spun, sending Sunday and Night skidding back as they shielded their faces.

"We also haven't forgotten that we defeated you," Cure Dusk said as she climbed out of the front passenger's door. "In fact, you shouldn't even be alive right now."

"This is the Etherium, dear miss!" The man laughed, not heeding the insulted look on Dusk's face at being called much younger than she was. "Time has no meaning here! At the very least, not with the Moon Dial."

"Kainatrol revived you two," Dawn said. "She needs the numbers on her side."

"She doesn't _need_ anything," the dancer replied with a laugh of her own. "But of course, it can't hurt."

"She needs the Moon Pieces," Hoshi corrected as she led Yukari and a reluctant Mia out of the van. "The Moon Dial's busted, remember?"

"Is that really wise, Kondou?", Millusion whispered, walking after her.

"Shut up, Omemi," Hoshi snarked back.

"That's what we're here for, little girl." The dancer stood up and snapped. "No matter how many of you climb out of that motorcar, you can't possibly win. Suiyacross, if you would?"

"Anything for you, Hitosalesque!" The potion seller snapped his own fingers in return and tossed up some glittery powder. Hitosalesque did a high sweeping kick, and the force of wind spread the powder all over the area.

"You can't stand against my Snake Oil..." A sickly yellow magic circle appeared as he opened up a bottle of potion.

"...and my Burlesque!" A pink one appeared under her as she danced. "Begin!"

* * *

><p><em>Futari wa Pretty Cure Blue Moon ~solar eclipse~<em>  
>Final Episode: Blue Moon...<p>

* * *

><p>"Come on! There's a ton of us and there are only two of you!" Sunday charged forward. "She's obviously not taking us seriously!"<p>

"No, look out!" Dawn called out to her.

The dancer smirked. She grabbed the stem of her giant martini glass and spun around it a few times. A gale picked Sunday up half a second before it hit everyone else, flinging her into the group to bowl Yukari and Hoshi over before crash-landing. Night flew back and tumbled next to her in a heap. The van tipped over and the adults crashed into it, and Millusion had to flash-teleport to avoid falling into a pit, only to take a flying Mia to the chest.

"You can't even _touch_ us," Hitosalesque said, standing straight up with a hand still on the glass. "This won't take long at all-" She cut off, suddenly moving but still being sliced in the arm. Devance had pulled himself to his feet and was going for another knife. Behind him, standing further back on the side of the tipped-over DaiVan, were Dawn and Dusk holding hands to gather energy.

"You've got to use ranged attacks with her!", Dusk called out to the group. "Is everyone okay?"

"Alive," Hoshi groaned, untangling herself. "I'm still covered in that sparkly stuff, though. What is it?"

Night started to pick herself up. "I've survived wo-" Part of the floor faded and vanished beneath her. Her lower half dropped, dangling into the abyss, as she scrambled to hold on to what was left.

"Night!" Sunday sprung over and stumbled to the edge. She crouched and reached down to grab Night's waist and start to pull her back up.

"This place is eating itself even more quickly than it was the last time we came here!" Yukari looked up at the adults. "Is it because they have more Moon Pieces?"

"It's that, in part," Devance said, still ready to throw daggers at any moment. "It's not because of the Moon Pieces themselves, though. Kainatrol is abusing the Moon Dial because she thinks she can do whatever she wants with it. The Etherium had rules, restrictions so that we couldn't break reality, and she's ignoring those."

Dawn gave a firm nod. "The proof is here. Suiyacross and Hitosalesque died in the Etherium, so logically you could use the Moon Dial to bring them back, but dying and erasure are different. Even if the Elder relented on undoing erasure because it _might_ work, undoing death will break the universe even further."

"The Etherium is already eating itself, and now this." Dusk frowned. "Be careful, everyone!"

"Potion, dear?" Hitosalesque turned her head to Suiyacross, still clutching her injured arm.

"Of course!" Keeping an eye on the party, he summoned a small clear bottle, much like the one Asa and Yoko had used. Hitosalesque took a sip and the potion sparkled, covering her cut in glittery light as it healed.

"Quickly!" Cure Dawn went back to concentrating her energy. "Dawn Phasing!"

Cure Dusk followed suit and they aimed at the two. "Dusk Phasing!"

"As the days move on..."

"...you will be lost to time!"

Hitosalesque laughed, pushing her pink hair behind her shoulder. "Fitting. Now, activate the powder!"

Sunday turned her head, still holding onto Night tightly. "What?"

"Gladly!" Suiyacross bowed from the waist and snapped his fingers. The glitter across the battlefield that had gotten all over everyone began to shimmer. Everyone and everything it covered vanished in a series of flashes of light, leaving the dancer and the potion seller in the white expanse.

"Done," he said. "They're scattered. Now all we need to do is pick them off and grab those last Moon Pieces."

She laughed and returned the giant martini glass to the nothingness it went to when she didn't have it summoned. "If they last that long."

* * *

><p>There was nothing. At first.<p>

Sunday slowly let go of Night and looked around. There weren't even walls or a floor, just floating clocks. "Echoes," she whispered.

"We're in the outer void again." Night noticed that she was clinging onto Asa still, let go, and pulled out her phone. "At least we've still got our Moon Pieces, right?"

Starry nodded his little head from Night's phone. "But where's everybody else ~susu?"

"Probably somewhere else in the void!" Sunday started moving her head in every direction. "We have to look for them, come on!"

"That will take _months,_" Night snapped. "Time we don't have! We're in the outer void. _They_ don't even come in here. It's going to erase us itself, even if we do have the Moon Pieces protecting us, if our enemies don't get us first."

Sunday spun back to her. "But we can't just sit here and die!"

"I know!" Night hesitated and sighed. "We need a plan."

Starry looked out of the phone. "Night, Sunday ~susu... There's somebody else here ~susu."

The two girls turned to look. There was a boy slowly emerging from one of the clocks, looking all four ways before pulling himself out. When he saw the group, he made a face.

"Go away."

"Binbeat?" Sunday pushed off of the air and floated over in his direction. "I thought nobody in the Etherium would go into the outer void." She stopped. He was rubbing tear streaks off of his face, and his eyes were red. "Are you..."

"'M not crying," he grumbled. "I said go away."

Night, holding Starry in the phone, floated to them. "Sunday, what are you doing?"

Sunday gave a shrug. "Maybe he can help us."

Binbeat thought for a minute. "Are you guys gonna go fight Kainatrol?"

"We are," Night said. "Sunday, that kid is an enemy, remember? Get back!"

"Wait up!" Binbeat waved his arms, looking somewhat silly with only his top half sticking out of the echo. "I'm not gonna fight you!"

"You're not?", Sunday asked. "Then... are you hiding?"

"Don't make fun of me!" He shook his head strongly and pulled himself out of the echo, tumbling into the air. "I'm just hiding until I can figure out how to beat her, okay? Kainatrol's messed up, she's, she's, because of her... Mireyes is _gone._"

Night floated, stunned. "She's gone? _Her?_"

Binbeat rubbed his eyes and glared up at them, shaking visibly. "'M not gonna fight you guys if you don't wanna. I'm gonna fight Kainatrol." Sniff. "I know we're enemies and stuff, but I helped your guys's friends find you that one time. And I know Mireyes was way stronger than you, but if you're gonna fight, I wanna help too!"

They took this in. Sunday looked at Night and then back to the small boy in front of them.

"...Can you help us find our friends?"

Binbeat floated up. "Uh-huh. And this time you don't even have to pay me in food or anything. I just... I want it to stop."

"We all want it to stop ~susu," Starry said from the phone.

Binbeat crossed his arms and looked down into the void, not even noticing as his white uniform turned black. "I didn't even really wanna destroy the world," he grumbled. "It just sucked."

"Our world sucks sometimes, too," Sunday offered. "At the same time, it can also be good."

Binbeat sniffed. He summoned his pipe organ and sat down on the bench, not standing on it or even swinging his legs this time. "Let's find 'em."

Night moved over to Sunday and whispered. "What is with you and befriending all our enemies today?"

Sunday gave a small laugh and watched.

-

It was cold, Yukari thought. Vast. She thought at first about staying in one place; that was what you were supposed to do when you were lost, right? But that dancer and the potion seller were going to be after the Moon Piece she'd been given when the party divided up the six they had, and this place was big enough that her friends might not find her in years. So she watched for movement and floated between those strange clock-looking things everywhere for cover until she saw something. She hid and slowly looked around the edge of one of the clock-like things she was hiding behind. The thing moving was definitely something large, and it just seemed to be floating aimlessly, bobbing around like an apple in the void. Yukari pushed her glasses up and looked more carefully.

It was the DaiVan, She burst out in giggles and had to muffle herself. Quickly checking in all directions if someone heard her, Yukari cursed herself, but nothing happened. More cautiously now, she started to float towards it, swimming through the void until he could reach the handle of the back door. She grabbed it, put her feet down under the door, and pulled it open.

Hoshi was inside, sitting in one of the seats without a seatbelt. "Hey, Okamoto. I guess you had the same idea I did."

Yukari pulled herself into the van and promptly fell on her face. She rubbed the back of her head and got up to yank the door shut. "I guess gravity still works in here..."

"To a point," Hoshi said. "Up is up inside the van, apparently. You can put a glass on the table and it won't tip over, even if we're probably floating diagonally or something."

Yukari straightened out her clothes. "So like those space movies with the artificial gravity?"

"Take this seriously!" Hoshi stood up and whirled on her. "We're going to _die._"

"We're _not,_ Hoshi." Yukari walked up to her. "They're going to be okay and so are we. We can do this."

"Do what!?" Hoshi slammed her fist down on the top of one of the seats. "We're stranded in Ogata-san's jalopy. Even if Asa and them used the Eclipse Whatever to turn this into a super-vehicle, we don't even know where they are right now. We lasted what, three minutes? Against two people, and one of them was support! We might as well give up!"

Yukari slapped her. The sound didn't echo inside the van, but it may as well have, for lack of any other sound. Hoshi reeled back and clenched a fist.

"Kondou Hoshi!"

"What?" Hoshi glared. "Am I wrong?"

"Yes," Yukari said. "I think you know it, too. I believe in Yoko and Asa. I believe in _everyone_ in this group. Even you. Even me. Don't you?"

Hoshi stopped, thought, and sighed. "Yeah. It's still hard, though. Even knowing they might be able to do it doesn't make it any better. It's not safe in here and they said we could fade away, if we don't get erased or die first. Those people from before are probably looking for us, so we can't just stay in one place."

Yukari twirled the end of her braid. "Then we've got to keep moving instead, right?"

Hoshi frowned. "How, though?"

"Watch." Yukari walked past her with a smile and hopped over the divide into the front seat of the van. She tested the keys in the ignition and looked back. "Hold on, okay?"

Hoshi scrambled over and grabbed the back of the driver's seat. "You're not-"

Yukari giggled and stepped on the gas. "Don't worry! It can drive even if there's no road, at least from what Asa tells me. Besides! This thing runs on burning spirit, right? We'll never run out of power!" The DaiVan sped forward.

"I can't even-" Hoshi clung tighter to the back of Yukari's seat. "Watch where you're going! We're not even old enough to drive!"

"Yoko's rubbing off on you," Yukari said, turning her head without looking where she was driving just to smile at Hoshi. "Let's go find the others!"

"OKAMOTO!" Hoshi lunged forward and grabbed the steering wheel, swerving to barely avoid running into an Echo clock.

They drove off, Hoshi complaining as the DaiVan sped and bobbled around.

* * *

><p>It had seemed to take a long time, but when Mia was found, it was thankfully by Cures Dawn and Dusk. She was staying very close to her mother's side as they moved through the void, searching for others.<p>

"It's too bad we don't have a card for that ~sasa," Sunbi commented.

"That's all right, Sunbi," Dawn said, still looking forward. "We've been here before. We can get out the same way we did last time."

"Of course," Dusk giggled slightly, "last time we also spent enough time in one place that we generated an Echo."

"Don't remind me," Dawn sighed.

Mia hesitated before speaking up. "I thought Echoes were destroyed worlds."

"Not always," Dusk said. "Echoes are traces of things that happened in a void space - whether it was that way at the time or not. They're often all that's left of an erased world, but if something happens afterward in the space, an Echo can be made. Think of a pencil; when you write something and then rub it out with an eraser, there are still trace marks on the paper, right?"

Mia nodded. "So it's sort of like that?"

"Right. Nothing is _completely_ destroyed," Dusk said. "When you think of the world this way, it's a source of eternal hope, isn't it?"

"I suppose..." Mia tilted her head. "But isn't it dangerous in here?"

"Very," Dawn said. She paused and looked around. "Stay close."

"Do you see something ~sasa?", Sunbi asked.

"Look over there ~muu!" Moonla interrupted before Dawn could answer. "At the lights!"

The group stopped and looked up and to the side. There was a flash of pink and what looked like a distortion in the air. A few blinks of dark blue responded. There was yellow, and then more blue.

"He's fighting up there," Dawn said. "Thank you, Moonla. Mia, hold on to me."

"What?" Mia did as asked. Dawn and Dusk grabbed each other's hands and pushed off of the empty air like they were jumping from building to building, moving as quickly as they could. As they got closer, Mia saw what the adults must have known the lights meant. There was her father, Devance, easily moving through the void as he dodged a force kick - that wind move that the pink dancer had kept using. Sure enough, she and her partner were there, facing off with him,.

"Just give up!" Hitosalesque gave another high kick in her frilly skirt. She sliced the air in front of her. "You know you can't beat us."

Devance jumped. No - he pushed off the air as if it were the ground and suspended himself above them. It was just like how her mother and Ami-sensei had gotten up here with her, Mia thought. They were treating this as a different kind of space, maybe the way it was supposed to be. Up and down were just as plausible as directions as left and right were, and everywhere you happened to be floating could be your invisible, untouchable floor. Mia tested it out, reaching out a foot and feeling nothing, but taking a deep breath and letting go of Cure Dawn anyway. Sure enough, instead of falling, she was standing in the air.

Devance spotted their group, gave a very slight nod, and threw a knife at Hitosalesque. She dodged in time, letting it hit her glass; shards and small bits went everywhere. She stood up, shook glass out of her ponytail, and looked back at the big crack in the giant martini glass.

"I'll need to get a new one of those," she sighed.

"There will be time for that, of course," Suiyacross said. "After all, we have forever, while _you_-" he looked at Devance- "only have until we wipe you out."

Mia shrank back. Dawn looked at her, gave a serious nod, and motioned for her to hide. Mia stumbled off, trying to get used to running on air, and hid behind an echo clock. Dawn and Dusk turned to each other and took each other's hands. A magic circle drew itself under them.

Devance threw a few more daggers and moved to the side while his opponents were dodging. "You don't understand, do you? She's going to erase you or kill you again once you're done."

"You're being ridiculous, boy!" Suiyacross laughed at the other man's angry stare. "Kainatrol is weak. Don't you recall? We can easily take her should she decide something of that nature."

Dawn and Dusk kept hidden under and behind them while they were distracted. The two Cures began to whisper their incantations and gather their purple and pink energy.

"Dawn Phasing."

"Dusk Phasing."

Devance drew out another glowing knife. "You realize that you're dead. She brought you back with the Moon Dial, and since that, the Etherium has been falling apart even more. If she doesn't kill you, this place will consume you itself. Besides, have you even thought of why she'd bring you back?"

Hitosalesque set herself up for another spin. "To get rid of Pretty Cure and company, naturally."

Suiyacross laughed. "After all, no one else could manage it!"

Devance threw more knives and braced for the wind. "Think of what she's like! Think of what she'd be like in charge! She probably got rid of the others herself!"

Mia looked up, hands clasped together. She tried to say something but thought better.

* * *

><p>Mekuramast was alive. He was going to stay alive, he told himself. For that, he had to resist.<p>

He focused. Fought. He could see her in front of him fuzzily, that person who had taken everything away out of spite. He put all of himself into fighting her power off. Nothing else. It wasn't hard. Hard to fend her off, yes, when she was trying to wear away at his will, but it wasn't hard to have that will and cling to it. He did, even with the waves of energy pushing onto him to try to crush what power he had to keep control of his body.

He wasn't going to give up and die. He'd already decided that.

He knew she was desperate. Grasping for control just like she was gripping the Moon Dial's edge. She was glowing red. The walls, ceiling, and floor were starting to break apart and fade. She didn't even notice. He didn't act like he did. She was saying the same things as before. He wasn't listening.

He twitched his arm. He could move. Almost. She poured more energy into her ability through the Moon Dial. He struggled to shut his eyes and she focused on keeping them open.

Behind him, his wand appeared in his hand. He could barely hold it and didn't dare bring the fact that he had it to the front of his mind lest she pick up on it - he didn't know if she could read her victims' minds, but it was better safe where she was concerned. He focused on resisting like he had back then. Thinking of them. Thinking of her. Of why it wasn't fair.

Thinking of the last time he had managed to shake off Tamer's Chain. He remembered Thera - no, Kainatrol, holding onto the Moon Dial. Saying something.

_"You went along with it all! Even if it were just to stay alive, you helped to destroy those worlds and all of those lives, so you can't tell me that I'm a monster!"_

He faltered. His eyes were forced open to be controlled. Maybe this was it. But-

-but then he remembered the paper-mache statue he'd built. A kore, in an earnest attempt to impress his assistant. Working with her on the Chronos Show. Encouraging her when she was afraid. Promising that she could escape like she'd always wanted, and that he'd even go with her. Seeing her disappear as her own sister altered time to make sure that she never existed. Years and years and years of being tortured with what had happened and living on the fact that maybe, if he studied and searched enough, he could find a way to fix it, and then finding that way and just needing the Moon Dial. And here it was, right in front of him. He couldn't fall to her using it.

He remembered that girl looking up at him.

_"You're secretly just like GoldFighter, aren't you?"_

_"Who?"_

_"GoldFighter! He says he's DaiFighter's eternal rival, but he's actually a pretty good guy. He's just trying to save someone."_

Mekuramast moved his hand enough to point his wand up at his top hat. His mind went to the next time he'd seen those two girls after that.

Cure Night hesitating. _"Even the good parts of this world have bad sides, and even the people you love can hurt you. Bad things can be good, though, and the people who hurt you aren't completely terrible. You were wrong when you said your world wasn't worth living in."_

Cure Sunday standing her ground._"Even though life isn't fair, people deserve to live happily. That's why I want to be a hero!"_

He wrested enough power to tip his head so his hat started to fall off. Kainatrol barely had a second to narrow her eyes in confusion. Mekuramast flicked his wrist, and a blue light flashed from the hat as it fell to the ground. Something flew out of the hat.

Doves.

Lots of them.

"Wha-" Kainatrol stepped back. Mekuramast briefly shone with a pale blue light and moved free, grinning. Endless birds flew _everywhere,_ around the room, through the gaps in the ceiling, walls, and floor, on exactly two missions.

One was to find a certain assortment of people he knew must be here by now and lead them to the core room.

The second, he noted as he ran forward through a mess of birds, was already underway.

* * *

><p>Hoshi was still clinging tightly to the back of the driver's seat, glaring down at Yukari.<br>"I'm telling you, could you at _least_ slow down? What if we crash!?"

"I guess I could," Yukari admitted, easing up on the pedal. She rubbed the back of her head, only for Hoshi to lunge for the steering wheel and yank it back before they veered off into the abyss.

"Thanks, Hoshi," Yukari said with a sigh. "I sort of forgot for a second."

"Sort of forgot?" Hoshi kept hold of the wheel. "Okamoto, stop. If we aren't gonna die from void exposure or just getting shanked or magically blown up or whatever, then your _driving's_ gonna kill us! Stop the van right now!"

"We're not going to die!" Regardless, Yukari took her foot off the gas - why did this thing even have a gas pedal if it didn't run on gas? She unbuckled her seatbelt and looked over her shoulder at Hoshi, only to jump a little when the car rolled forward.

"_Brake,_" Hoshi ordered, grabbing the stick to put the DaiVan in park. "Aren't you and Nakayama best friends or something? Do you know anything?"

Yukari got up from her seat, standing up with the extra headroom in the transformed van. "Of course I don't! We're both way too young to drive, and not many people in town drive anyway, even if we do live in the middle of nowhere!"

Hoshi let go of the stick shift and stood up too. "You think Kazahana City is in the middle of nowhere? Try living out in Fubuki Town! At least you guys have schools. Two of them. _I_ have to take the train out to Kazahana every day because they closed our school."

"People go out of town for things in Kazahana City, too!" Yukari glared back at her. "There are less people in the shopping district because everybody goes out of town to the cheap department stores! Why do you think we have to call ourselves a mall? To look modern! So people will come!"

"Well, maybe if the stores didn't sell overpriced crap!", Hoshi snapped.

"My parents and the other shopkeepers sell things for what they're _worth_, not what the cheapo-marts tell people they are," Yukari said, "and none of it is crap!"

They stood off against each other, breathing in and out, not saying anything. Finally, Hoshi looked away with a sigh.

"Why do we always end up fighting?"

Yukari shook her head. "I don't know. I don't get it either." She slumped down back into the driver's seat, pointedly not touching the controls. "At least when Yoko and Asa do it, they're obviously just flirting."

Hoshi paused. She climbed into the front passenger seat. "...So it's not just me, then."

Yukari looked over. "Not just you?"

"You know." Cough. "Not just me who thinks that either those two have a thing already or they're going to eventually."

"Probably." Smile. "Lately, they've been acting more and more like it, but I don't think even they notice half the time."

Hoshi tugged at a knot in her hair. She snapped it off with a cringe, rolled down the window, and tossed it out; it faded away, and she pulled her hand back and cranked the window back up. Silence. "...so. You're okay with that?"

Yukari thought. "Uh-huh."

Hoshi looked back. "Heh. Me too. Maybe you were right about people changing, Okamoto."

"Everyone does." She smiled. "When they want to, for good or bad. ...Hey, what's that?"

Hoshi looked out the front windshield to where she was pointing. There was something moving, closer, but it wasn't a person. She searched the dash for the button that shot lasers when she saw what it was.

"Birds?"

"I think so! Nothing lives out here, so they probably came from the inside. Let's follow them." Yukari's hand went for the stick shift.

Hoshi whirled around. "Oh, no, no, no you don't!"

"Hoshi, we have to-" Yukari stopped. Hoshi was getting up again with her hand already on the stick shift, and she gave an unsure, but forward smile.

"I'm driving."

* * *

><p>Millusion was the next to see some of the scattered doves. Of course she followed them, even if it might have been a ridiculous idea. When the group had divided up the six Moon Pieces, they hadn't given her one, so following these birds to wherever they were going was probably the best course of action. Why there were birds in the Etherium anyway, she didn't know, but if it were a trap, at least it might be better than wasting away until the void ate her. Of course, if it weren't a trap, and if she did find the others, she would just tell them she knew it wasn't all along. <em>Not<em> knowing things really, really got on her nerves.

As it was, though, she followed the doves until they started to circle around one spot. She looked forward, left, and right, and saw nothing, until she heard voices and looked down.

Well.

There were those two revived Etherium agents fighting with Mia's father, not even seeing Mia herself floating a few metres underneath them or Dawn and Dusk charging up some attack. Wait, she'd just run into the path of that, hadn't she? She bit back a curse and had a dark teal magic circle draw itself under her feet, teleporting her down below as the birds scattered out of the way.

Suiyacross looked up at the flash of light and the fading circle of deep blue-green. "Someone's been here!"

Hitosalesque braced herself and looked up as well. "What? Who has that colour?" She turned back to Devance and deflected another thrown knife. "Who are you working with?"

With their opponents distracted, Cure Dawn and Cure Dusk shot their outside hands forward and charged up pink and purple energy in a growing, glowing sphere.

Devance just gave a confident nod. "Everyone who cares enough."

"As the days move on..."

"...you will be lost to time!"

"Pretty Cure Era Cycle!"

"What!?" Hitosalesque looked down just to see the glowing ball shoot a giant beam of pink and purple light, crackling and coming straight at them. Suiyacross quickly threw down a bottle of potion as they took the blast.

"Good job!" Devance looked down. "Emiru-chan, where did you get the birds?"

Millusion thought of saying something along the lines of 'wouldn't you like to know' or at least something that implied she knew more than she did, but something told her that wouldn't go over well. She sighed visibly. "They flew out from the core. Unfortunately, I must regretfully admit that I have no idea why or what they're doing."

Devance nodded, generating another knife to aim into the pillar of magic. "I think we may need to keep following them."

"Emiru-chan, take Mia," Dawn called, still keeping up the attack. "These two threw down a defense with one of those potions."

"We're going to have to herd them back to the core as we fight," Dusk said. "Make sure they don't notice the birds!"

"Oh, I'm on that!" Millusion drew out her pendulum. "I'll take this if it comes to it, though if we're herding them, we'll need to keep them moving. Come on." She grabbed Mia around the waist and teleported her up before she could let out an "eep!". As the last of the attack faded away and Suiyacross and Hitosalesque stood, scuffed and burned but confident, Mia looked at the birds, now much closer, and then up at Millusion.

"Th-thank you!"

Millusion smirked. "I have got to teach you how to do this."

* * *

><p>Binbeat knew by now that his power was stronger in the Etherium than it had been in the Land of Tracks. Indeed, the last time he'd done this, it had given the people around him visions instead of just him, and combined with the move Sunday and Night had been using while he was looking to see if they were still around, their friends were able to find them. He wasn't sure if that last part would work in reverse, though, so he didn't mention it and just played.<p>

_I don't know where you are  
>But tell me if you're gone<br>As we you left behind  
>Continue living on<br>Are you here?_

_The future cannot die  
>The past will fall apart<br>O song, bring me the truth  
>O path, connect our hearts<br>Bring you here..._

Binbeat stopped glowing green and looked over. "All your guys's friends are still in the void." He started counting on his fingers. "There's a ton of 'em."

"What are they doing?", Night asked.

"They're following birds," he said. "Kinda look like Mekuramast's birds that come out of his hat sometimes, but he's been gone for, I dunno, a couple days. Maybe a couple weeks."

Sunday thought. "Do you know where _he_ is?"

"I can find out!" Binbeat turned back to the organ and started playing again.

Night exhaled and looked over at Sunday. "At least that's something. Thanks."

Sunday smiled. "I just thought he needed help, and he could help us! It's pretty simple."

"You're good at these things," Night said. "Pretty Cure things. Fighting and being a hero. I know I always get mad at you for being unrealistic, but really... most of the time, you know what you're doing and I don't. You've saved me too many times."

"That's how I feel about you in normal life," Sunday said, face turning pink. "You know stuff I don't even think about."

"We're both bad at normal life," Night replied. "But... really, who's good at it? People like Omemi-san? Or like Yukari, and even she decided it was better to be happy than to fit in."

"You know, Night?" Sunday hesitated. "Being with you, with everyone... made me think that you can be happy _and_ have friends, without having to compromise yourself to fit in. Sometimes it hurts, but it would hurt either way, right?"

Night slowly nodded. "Sometimes I'm scared, though. My family is okay with things like the cars, but they just want to be normal, and that means having normal children. A lot of families are like that."

"That's okay," Sunday said. "There are people who can help you out! If we stick together, it'll be okay! Uh..."

Night felt something sinking inside her. "What is it?"

Sunday started fidgeting. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you. Uh, that I still want to ask you. That is. Uh. Will you..."

Binbeat took his hands off the keys and spun on the bench. "Guys, I found-"

"Will you go out with me after this?"

Night trembled and stared.

Sunday tensed up and stepped back, looking away.

Starry looked out with question marks in his eyes.

Binbeat stared, tilted his head, and made a face. "Eww, don't get all lovey here. You're gonna spread girl cooties."

Sunday and Night stared at him, then back at each other, before finally doubling over laughing at themselves and the poor boy they'd brought into this. Binbeat grumbled that he didn't know what was so funny anyway. Once they calmed down, he went to stand on top of the bench, but thought better of it and instead floated up to eye level.

"I found him. He just ran a little bit away from Kainatrol is an' he's waiting for the birds." Binbeat took a deep breath. "You wanna go?"

* * *

><p>These things. In the way. They needed to go. Taking the arm down that had been shielding her eyes from the flurry of birds, Kainatrol put one hand on either side of the Moon Dial and glowed a deep red. The light spread to the Moon Dial as a magic circle drew under her, and the room started to swirl and fade even more quickly. Light shot in all directions. When the red flash and glow had dimmed to normal, the room had more solid patches besides the one cracked portion of wall, where she'd erased Eiender. The birds were gone.<p>

So was Mekuramast.

Kainatrol looked cautiously around the room. She ran a hand through her short hair and frowned.

"No. Too easy."

Her words echoed in the room even as it was fading. She took in a deep, tense breath and stepped forward with a crack. Not leaving the Moon Dial even for a second, she started to move it with her. When it was too heavy or awkward to carry, she settled for teleporting forward, looking around, teleporting again, and repeating.

"You could be anywhere, couldn't you?" She addressed the shifting halls. She was beginning to tremble, but she didn't look afraid. Her face was twisting into a wide grin, and her eye was twitching. She began to glow red, keeping one hand on the edge of the Moon Dial, and struck the air with her other hand. The light hit a patch of wall; it crumbled and faded away. Kainatrol laughed and did it again. "Ahaha... I'll find you!"

"Hey!"

Kainatrol spun and barely threw up a round red shield to deflect Cure Sunday's flying kick entrance. Sunday landed a few paces back and sprang right back up.

"I'm surprised you people keep surviving!" Kainatrol kept moving, teleporting, and Sunday dashed along with her, aiming her strikes.

Sunday smiled confidently. "There's nothing you'll stop at unless we stop you ourselves! Night!"

Night entered behind her from a wall that had just faded out and landed a punch on Kainatrol, though it barely hit before she teleported again. She straightened herself up and pointed at Kainatrol. "You're tearing the place apart because you don't have what you want? What is wrong with you?"

Kainatrol breathed in and out haltingly with a laugh under her breath. "Do you think I care about being a bad person? About being a danger to the worlds? Well, what have you done with your lives?"

"Now!" Sunday lunged for the Moon Dial while Night came at Kainatrol from the other direction. Kainatrol threw up a round shield and knocked them both away. They got up to their feet again and looked at her smirking at them from behind the shield.

"Oh, just try to break this," Kainatrol said. "If you don't wear yourselves out trying. I've said it before: I don't _fight._"

"How can you do this?" Night clenched her fists. "Do you even realize what you're doing?"

"I've established that I do," Kainatrol replied. "You might want to remember it."

"She's trying to wear us down because she can't control our minds!" Sunday looked at Night, then at the shield. "We can break this just like we broke that orb when Tachimany captured Starry, remember? Let's go!"

Night took a deep breath. "All right!"

The two of them ran at full speed towards Kainatrol. She smirked, watching their fists strike her shield at the exact same time. As they put more and more power into that one hit, the shield began to crack. Finally, their pressure broke through it and it shattered into energy - only to have another barrier, and another behind that, form and expand quickly enough that it slammed into them and hit the two of them far back.

Night and Sunday both crumpled to the floor. They shook and untangled themselves, bringing themselves to their feet, and looked up. Kainatrol was now surrounded by five layers of shielding and laughing at them.

"You've got to be kidding me!", Sunday exclaimed. "Come on, Night, let's use the Second Spin!"

"If we do that, she'll just create more!" Night watched her. "There has to be a better way to do this."

"Oh, you can try," Kainatrol said, "but I don't have any weaknesses you can counter."

Suddenly, a whip made of scarves shot out between Night and Sunday and lashed at one of the barriers before constricting and cracking it. The Cures turned around to see Mekuramast letting go and pulling it back into his sleeve.

"You're talented with blatant lies, Kainatrol," Mekuramast said, "but that's about it." He looked at Night and Sunday, nodding at each. "She may be strong now, but even with the Moon Dial in her hands, you can resist her. No matter how much power she has."

"That's ridiculous," Kainatrol said. "I'm certainly strong enough to fight the three of you... oh, and it looks like I'm not alone."

"What?"

Kainatrol gestured to an open spot in the floor where birds were flying out from. When the three of them looked cautiously, Hitosalesque rose up from the gap and spin-kicked the air. The wind bounced harmlessly off of Kainatrol's shields but sent the others skidding back and shielding their faces. Suiyacross followed through the hole in the floor just before it closed.

"Fashionably late, as always," Suiyacross commented. "Shall we show them how it's done?"

"Absolutely," Hitosalesque said. "Heal me first."

"Of course, of course!" Suiyacross drew out a potion from his seemingly limitless jacket and tossed it over. "To full!"

Mekuramast shot out his scarf whip. Suiyacross moved in front of Hitosalesque as she opened and drank the potion, catching the scarves around his arm and not even wincing. He shook off the whip and smiled, shaking his head, as Mekuramast drew the whip back.

"Trying to catch her while she's preoccupied? And you say we're low."

Just as he said this, the floor opened up again. Dawn and Dusk flew up through, socking the two in unison. As they stumbled back, Hitosalesque spin-kicked them into the floor and followed up with a wind kick to send them back. Dawn and Dusk got up and dusted themselves off. Devance teleported over and flung a knife that clinked off of Kainatrol's shield. Millusion teleported in with Mia, hanging in the back.

Suiyacross opened his mouth to speak. "Well, this is-"

"I don't care how many there are." Kainatrol cut him off. "Finish them. The two of you are here to defend me." As she said this, she concentrated on the Moon Dial. The scene around them warped and changed. The floor took a sharp drop and the ceiling disappeared and the walls got taller and further apart. As the assortment opposing her watched, Kainatrol flew high above them in her shield bubble, and the air around her and under her was warping like a volatile thing that switched from solid to liquid to gas without stopping.

"She knows full well that the Etherium is breaking with how she's abusing the Moon Dial," Devance said, clenching a fist at his side.

"It's not just that," Dusk almost whispered. She looked up at Kainatrol laughing down at them. "She's doing it on purpose now. What is she thinking?"

Mekuramast's eyes darkened. He ran forward and leapt into the air, flinging a handful of cards upwards. Hitosalesque clapped and did a small twirl, and the cards exploded harmlessly before reaching Kainatrol. Mekuramast landed on the ground and glared up at her.

"The show's only started," Hitosalesque said. "And we're working so hard to entertain you all."

"You're all blights in our new boss' eyes," Suiyacross said, "and we've got just the cure!"

Mekuramast seethed. "Very well." He got to his feet. "After all, it took two people to kill the two of you last time. With this many, it's surprising how long you've already lasted, no matter how strong you are!"

"Oh, really?" Hitosalesque responded with another spinning wind kick. Mekuramast teleported out of the way, and Sunday and Night behind him jumped over it.

Dawn and Dusk joined hands again.

"Dawn Phasing!"

"Dusk Phasing!"

Sunday grabbed Night's hand. "Us too, before she gets them! Sun Limit!"

"Ah- Night Limit!"

Hitosalesque laughed. "Double-teaming isn't going to work~ Dear?"

Suiyacross pulled out a bottle of clear bubbling liquid. "Only the very best! Now!" He popped the cork and flew up to Hitosalesque's martini glass, pouring the liquid in. It just kept filling the glass until it was full, a trickle seeping out of the crack in the glass aside, even if the bottle couldn't have held that much potion. Smoke began to pour out of the glass in huge clouds, spreading through the room. Mia immediately doubled over coughing, and Millusion crouched down beside her. Dawn and Dusk covered their mouths and tried to jump, but landed back on the floor - gravity still worked in the core. Mekuramast covered his face with his cape and Devance flew above the smoke. When it hit, Sunday and Night both collapsed to their knees, coughing and tearing up.

"What _is_ this?" Night gasped for air. "It's like exhaust!"

Devance hovered over. "Suiyacross' title in the Etherium is the Curing Poison. His potions can either heal or hurt. Are you all okay?"

"We'll live," Millusion called. "Unfortunately-" coughing fit- "nobody ever taught me how to fly!"

Sunday tried to breathe in and out, but every breath took in more of the toxic smoke. She fell to the floor and tried to pull herself up, only to fall down again. She heard Night calling her name and falling down too. Laughing? Probably Kainatrol. Concerned voices. More people falling down. She reached to her side. Night's hand grabbed hers and held it. They lay there, trying to get up, trying to move, closing their eyes to shield from the gas.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

"Nnn...?" A hallucination? Didn't those exist for audio too?

BEEP. BEEEEEEEEEEP.

No, that was definitely beeping. When Sunday listened, she also heard what sounded like.. laser guns going off? The smoke didn't feel so heavy anymore, and she was able to push down on the hand that wasn't holding Night's and pull herself up to her knees. She rubbed her eyes and waved her hand in front of her face before daring to open her eyes.

The smoke was clearing. It looked like it was leaving out a hole that hadn't been before. Sunday shook Night's hand and pulled her up, holding her and shaking her awake. The beeping started in again, and this time they saw a big red laser cut through the smoke and heard what sounded like a window breaking. The smoke quickly started to dissipate, fading away from a brightly coloured light that was moving quickly and erratically toward them.

"We made it!" A familiar voice sounded like it was coming out of an intercom... or a loudspeaker.

"And without your awful driving," said another person. "Hey, everyone, you all right?"

"Hoshi? Yukari?" Sunday looked over at the last of the smoke clearing. Screeching to a stop, led by more of those same white birds, was the DaiVan. Yukari opened up the door and waved.

"This is easy enough to operate!" She rubbed the back of her head as she looked at Cure Dawn, who was still breathing and standing with an amused look on her face. "Well, we're sorry about driving your van."

"Yeah, easy enough when _you_ take care of the lasers and _I_ try not to die," Hoshi grumbled. "I'm putting this in park. I can't drive this thing either."

As Sunday watched her friends get out of the van, she took account of the others. Dawn and Dusk were helping Millusion revive Mia. Devance was there, too, but keeping an eye on Hitosalesque and Suiyacross, who were fending off Mekuramast's cards, whip, and other magic tricks; that shattering sound must have been the martini glass, or now, its lasered remains. Sunday quickly turned her head down to Night, who groaned and rose to life.

"Ngh," Night said. She coughed at Sunday holding her up. Sunday awkwardly let go of her, only to grab hold again to help her up to stand again and let go more cautiously this time.

"This cannot be happening!" Suiyacross supplied Hitosalesque with potions and stayed behind her.

Hitosalesque traded long-distance attacks with Mekuramast as the two kept moving around. "Don't worry, we'll finish them off!"

"No way!" Cure Sunday swept her hand out. "Everyone, now's the time! Night!"

Sunday and Night held hands again and the magic concentrated under and around them.

Hoshi and Yukari nodded. Warm white light shot off of their bodies, visible even against the cold white Etherium. A half-awake Mia and a reluctant Millusion followed, and then Devance, Dusk, and Dawn. The light flowed into Sunday and Night and they smiled. Blue fire engulfed them for a brief moment before burning white.

"Sun Limit!"

"Night Limit!"

"Despite the passage of time..."

"...our feelings will endure forever!"

Cure Sunday and Cure Night flew up into the air, above the battle with Suiyacross and Hitosalesque, and aimed right at Kainatrol, taking the energy the others had given.

"Pretty Cure Unison Second!"

They let go of one another and raced through the air and past the warping pieces of space. Both of them targeted the exact same spot: Kainatrol behind her layered shield bubble. They connected. Slam. Crack. Break. Slam into another layer. Crack. Break. Another. Another. They reached out and linked hands again, taking on the last layer of the shield, pouring all of their power into breaking it and getting at Kainatrol.

It broke.

But she was already gone. She and the Moon Dial had teleported behind them just as they cracked the last layer of shield. Sunday and Night's comet-like unison helplessly sped forward and the shifting Etherium moved to meet them. They crashed through wall after wall built in the same place until their energy burned out and they crunched painfully into the last wall. The two of them tumbled like swatted bugs down to the floor.

"Asa! Nakayama!" Hoshi ran over to their limp forms.

Yukari followed. "Night, Sunday, are you still-"

Suiyacross teleported behind them and threw another powder on them. The two shuddered to a stop, frozen in place. He looked them over and grabbed one Moon Piece each out of their hands. Starry popped out of the phone he was in, but Suiyacross kicked him aside, rummaged through the Cures' phones, and extracted their Moon Pieces too. "Four," he called.

"Perfect." Hitosalesque ducked backward under Mekuramast's next attack, grabbed his scarf whip, and yanked him to the ground by it. She let go and closed in on Dawn and Dusk with a series of wind kicks as they were running over. Devance tried to attack her, but Suiyacross teleported back and intercepted the knives he threw with his cloak, which took no damage. Hitosalesque knocked them back with a high kick, teleported over, and extracted their two Moon Pieces from their cassette players just by holding one hand over each until the Pieces flew out, without even using the Storage Card. Both Hitosalesque and Suiyacross retreated back and flew to where Kainatrol was.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Dusk jumped over toward them, Dawn and Devance following. Kainatrol shielded herself from their attacks and pushed forward with the shield to send all three crashing into the ground.

Kainatrol looked down at the scene below her and laughed. "Oh, finally. I was afraid that was going to take forever. Not that it matters in a place without time, right?" She fixed her eyes on Suiyacross and Hitosalesque. "You've got the Moon Pieces. Now give them to me."

They hesitated. Suiyacross spoke first. "You're certainly stronger than you used to be. Is that just the Moon Dial?"

"What does it matter?" Kainatrol raised an eyebrow. "The Moon Dial is everything. It's power over time and space. Now give me the pieces so I can complete it again."

Hitosalesque shook her head. "We'd also like to know something more pressing." She looked down at their prone enemies, and then back to Kainatrol. "Exactly why was everybody else gone when you summoned us? I'm only counting two defectors here, save for that girl we don't know. What happened to the rest, hmm~?"

"You're defying me." Kainatrol grasped the Moon Dial and charged up an attack. "You're defying me!"

"Uh-uh," Hitosalesque said. "We've got Moon Pieces. The Moon Dial can't touch us, and neither can you."

"It can't," Kainatrol said, "but I can." She started to glow, taking in energy from the Moon Dial and from the surrounding area.

"What's she doing?" Hitosalesque guarded herself.

"I doubt she knows," Suiyacross said. "Watch out!"

Kainatrol shot her head back and laughed. Dark red light spread around her before drawing back in, and her eyes locked straight onto the two of them. Her body started to fade in and out for a moment before a wave of energy crashed onto them instantly. She bound the two of them in red magic and pressed.

"I can't... breathe," Hitosalesque gasped.

"It's crushing me!" Suiyacross called out.

The two of them struggled to move, to break out of their bindings. Hitosalesque shook and tugged until she managed to slip out an arm. She yanked at the bonds and they tightened. Suiyacross cried out and she looked over to him. She slowly, still trying to live let alone move, reached out to him. Stretched. He fought in his bonds until something opened up, while Kainatrol looked on. Living on halting breaths, they reached out to one another, stretching to at least have the slight brush of fingertips for a second or less. But they were just too far apart, if they just tried harder, reached-

Their arms fell. They disappeared and the magic faded, leaving only six Moon Pieces floating in the air.

Kainatrol walked forward on air and grabbed the Moon Pieces. She shook her head, spun on her heel, and went back to place them into the Moon Dial. Once they were all in, the thirteen Moon Pieces shone and the cracks between them healed. A sun-and-moon insignia formed itself atop the now complete Moon Dial.

Cure Sunday managed to look up and shake her head. "No..."

Cure Night forced her head up as well and stared. "It's really over."

The Etherium started to solidify more than it was, the shifting pieces of wall under Kainatrol's feet disappearing. Kainatrol looked at the place where Suiyacross and Hitosalesque had been. She scoffed. "Idiots."

Mekuramast, from the ground, could only stare. He saw them over again, suspended just far enough apart to be unable to touch. He saw her, and her, and himself, and the tent being eaten away. He dropped to his knees and held his hands up to his head.

"It's no use. It's no use after all..."

Kainatrol looked down at him and gave that uncanny smirk.

"That's it, isn't it?" She burst out laughing. "It's no use! That's it! If I was just supposed to deal with it while you pulled up after she fell into despair, when I was the one who had never given up, then you should deal with it, too! Deal with your hard work, one hundred fifty years of holding on so you can get the Moon Dial and get your revenge on me and fix your precious world, accomplishing _nothing!_"

Mekuramast didn't move. Kainatrol continued.

"I don't know or care what she was to you, you were both going to run away and leave me there when I deserved to escape far more than you did! Now you're the one who doesn't have any hope." She made a sweeping gesture at the people on the ground. "None of you have any hope! You'll all be gone soon. You will never have existed. And then, now that I know about the worthless impressions your lives leave behind in here, I'll wipe out whatever's left of you, your worlds, my undeserving backstabber of a weak sister, _and everybody else!_"

She laughed in the echoing void room, to herself and to the rest. Suddenly, she heard another sound.

"You're wrong!"

Silence. She looked down. Cure Night was pushing up with the strength she had no business still having, forcing herself up to her feet, looking from the ground at Kainatrol. "You're wrong," Night repeated.

"What?" Kainatrol felt a chill.

"When you said we didn't have any hope." Night looked down at Sunday, then back up. "We do. Even without our Moon Pieces. Even beaten, and even trapped here with you. We've always got hope!" Sunday smiled up at her.

Kainatrol twitched and started to fly down closer. "What do you know!?"

Night stood her ground. "I know that, even if life is painful, life is also good. The world may have hurt me, it may have hurt all of us, but there are reasons in that same world for me to hold on!"

Sunday pulled herself up and stood beside Night. She smiled at her before looking up at Kainatrol. "She's right. There's something for everyone to live for!"

"That's impossible!" Kainatrol let go of the Moon Dial and flexed her riding crop tightly. "There's nothing for you to live for. Everything will cease to exist soon!"

"But that's exactly why we won't let that happen!" Sunday called up at her. "There's still hope. After all, I still have the next episode of _DaiFighter_ to watch!"

"...What?"

"Yeah!" She pumped her fist. "The finale is coming up really soon, and I have to know what happens!"

"What is _DaiFighter_ anyway ~muu?" Moonla popped her head out of Ami's transformation cassette player. "Is it important ~muu?"

"Of course ~susu!" Starry emerged from the phone. "Mama, _DaiFighter_ is the story of a person who does great things and fights for justice ~susu! I watch it every week with Asa or Yoko ~susu!"

Night sweatdropped, but Sunday looked encouragingly at her. Night took a deep breath. "Sunday's right, we all still have things to live for! Like I have to finish all my schoolwork because the semester's almost over, so then I can have more fun with my friends!"

Dawn and Dusk smiled at each other and got to their feet.

"I have some explaining to do to my child," Dawn said, watching Kainatrol turn to look down at her. "Both of them. When Karei gets back from her school out of town, I'll tell her everything, too."

Dusk twirled around despite her injuries. "I have a duty to the world to spread happiness and instruct my class in the ways of being kind to one another and filling the world with positive change!" She coughed. "Maybe I will finally get a promotion, too."

The rest of the assorted group started to stand up.

"I have so many things in the Land of Legends that I still haven't seen yet!"

"I still have friends I want to go out and have fun with!"

"I have a title to win!"

"I have to support my parents' store!"

Mia hesitated. "I want to meet all of the members of the boy bands on the covers of _Kira-Kira Monthly_ from the past year!"

Hoshi boggled at Mia. "Ogata?"

Mia wrung her hands. "It was the first thing I could think of..."

Dawn smiled. "Nothing is too small or too implausible. All of our dreams are worth living for."

"That's right ~sasa!" Sunbi's head emerged from Dawn's transformation player. "I dream of a lifetime supply of donuts ~sasa!"

Dawn laughed. "Still?"

"Absolutely ~sasa! I will not give up on that dream ~sasa!"

Mia blinked. "This sounds like a long story..."

Kainatrol nearly snapped her riding crop in half. She started to descend toward the other side in her shield bubble. "What is wrong with all of you people? None of these things matter! Do you even realize that that world you're talking about is about to end?"

"We know where you're coming from, all right." Dawn stepped forward. "We're saying that you will never win."

Dusk stood beside her. "We're saying that everything has its value, and so we'll never let the world die without letting everyone find and keep their happiness!"

"Happiness?" Kainatrol threw her riding crop down and it landed on the air in the shield level to her feet. "I would have thought by now that you would be less ridiculously naive. You don't deserve happy lives." She flickered in and out again. "Nobody does."

"You said something earlier today," Dawn said, sizing up Kainatrol. "About what we said to your old boss, which you twisted to help yourself. When we said 'you must believe there's something good about life, because you're still alive', you know that we didn't mean he should erase himself. What we meant was that life has value. Ours and yours."

Millusion watched the scene from the back. Her eyes moved from side to side, taking in every detail.

Devance stood on the other side of Dawn. "Will you even be happy if everything else goes away, Kainatrol?"

Kainatrol seethed. "I can't be happy if it's still here."

Behind her, Mekuramast rose to his feet. He was still shaking as she turned around to look at him, but he looked up at her in response.

"So what you did was make it so that _nobody_ could be happy if _you_ were still around," he said. "All these years, you've just spread misery to make others follow you and then wipe them out."

Kainatrol gave a mocking laugh. "Oh, don't talk about it like you didn't have anything to do with it, Kairos. White or black, an eye mask is still what it is. You've done the same damage as any of us. Wasn't it you who said the Garden of Rings wasn't worth living in when I asked you to join the Etherium?"

"Maybe I was wrong about that." Mekuramast didn't move. "And believe me, I'm well aware of the things I and everybody else did, both following our previous employer and, for those less fortunate, following you. None of that changes the fact that you need to be stopped, Thera. More than anything else, I'll work for that, even if I'll never bring Kore and our world back!"

Kainatrol blazed with rage and red light. "You-! Why? Why won't you stop! Even when I break you, you get back up! Kore doesn't exist anymore! _Thera_ doesn't exist anymore! Thera was a caged trained animal! Kainatrol is the one who is spreading Thera's hopelessness!"

She restructured her shield to open a gap between her and Mekuramast and aimed a light from the Moon Dial at him. Cure Sunday rushed forward to kick her, and Kainatrol quickly put the shield back to normal and stopped charging power. Sunday bounced off the shield.

"So if you can't be happy, nobody can!?" Sunday kept attacking the shield. "What is wrong with you?"

Hoshi watched the fight and gestured to Night. "That enemy of yours? She's mad. Get her to let her guard down again. As long as she's paying attention and remembering to keep the shield up and rebuild it whenever it breaks, she'll just keep putting it back up until she gets bored and erases everyone."

Night kept her eyes on the fight. "Or," she whispered, "once she feels we've suffered enough." She ran in after Sunday and threw a punch at the other side of the shield.

"You really are children!" Kainatrol laughed. "You keep trying something that won't work. I have _more_ than enough power to take you now."

Dawn, Dusk, and Devance stood ready to join in at one side of the fight, Mekuramast at the other. Hoshi and Yukari looked ready to get back in the van, and Mia stood on the sidelines. Millusion was still by Mia, watching. Watching everything.

Sunday shot her palm forward at the shield. "You aren't going to win. It doesn't matter if you could erase us all right now. Even if you did, you still wouldn't be happy that way!"

Night gave the shield an uppercut from the other side. "Being alone because the world might not accept you isn't the answer!" She kicked it. "Those people you erased or even killed- any one of them, as unlikely as it wounds, could have become someone important to you!"

Kainatrol threw off her shield. Before anyone could do anything, she held the Moon Dial and a wave of energy spread through the room. Everyone but her was now suspended in place, feeling an odd tingling everywhere, unable to move but able to see and hear. Kainatrol looked at the Moon Dial with a brief smile and turned her attention back to the assorted room.

"If you say I'll never win, I have to question you. Or maybe I'll just erase you all now and get to work on your worlds." She let go of the Moon Dial, started to walk down the air to the ground, and leaned down to look into Night's frozen face. "You don't know a _thing._" Kainatrol then stood up and made a sweeping gesture to address the whole room. "None of you do, though it's not too surprising. You can't do a thing about it. Everyone I got rid of, by erasure or otherwise? They deserved it! In fact, they deserved worse."

Kainatrol and her assortment of victims heard a crack. An explosion.

She spun around, only to have ten or twenty small bombs go off around her, knocking her down. Her spell undid itself and everybody else in the room stumbled back to life. They turned in unison to the new hole in the wall and the organ music coming out of it. Binbeat slammed the keys of the organ, scattering more explosions around Kainatrol and knocking her out of range to reach the suspended Moon Dial. He turned his head and threw his mask into the abyss, looking straight at her.

"Did not."

"Brat- you're alive?" Kainatrol scrambled up to lunge for the Moon Dial. She stopped. Instantly, where Kainatrol had been, there was an orb of dark teal light.

Heads turned to the only possible source. Millusion was holding out her silver-plated pendulum, swinging it back and forth and glowing blue-green.

"All right," she told herself. "Make the Moon Dial. Make all the people. Make everything perfect. It has to be perfect or she'll notice."

Mia gasped. "Are you - are you making this room, Omemi-san?"

"I've made it!" Millusion didn't look aside. "I'll keep this up for as long as I can. Kawada! Nakayama! Everyone, do it!"

Sunday and Night nodded. They stood to hold hands. Dawn and Dusk walked up to the other side of the Trance Lock orb and also held their inside hands. They reached out their outside hands to the younger Cures, who hesitated, looked at each other, and then took their seniors' hands so the four Cures were standing in a linked circle. Sunbi, Moonla, and Starry popped out and activated the right cards in all four phones.

"Dawn Phasing!"

"Sun Limit!"

"Dusk Phasing!"

"Night Limit!"

A giant four-coloured magic circle formed under them, spinning in pink and orange and purple and black.

"Everyone, give them energy!" Hoshi started to glow as she dragged an also-glowing Yukari into the DaiVan, standing at attention to backup. The light flew off of them, and everybody else in the room followed suit, filling the Cures' magic circle.

"Time goes on," said Cure Dawn, and the pink quarter of the circle lit up.

"Things are found and lost," said Cure Dusk, and the purple quarter of the circle lit up.

The other two looked at each other again before letting the words they felt compelled to say come out.

"All of our hearts...", began Cure Sunday, with the orange quarter shining in response.

"...will remain united!" Cure Night finished the circle, with the black quarter giving off its own aura. The circle spun faster and energy flowed in from all directions, surrounding the four. They took a deep breath and shouted in unison.

"Pretty Cure Neverending Eclipse!"

They sent forward a flurry of spinning power all focused on the centre where Kainatrol was. Millusion threw open the orb. A Kainatrol who had been gleefully attacking fake enemies with a fake Moon Dial barely blinked before it hit her. From thousands of different directions all at once, she was pierced with a shining, multicoloured light and a warm feeling. Her eyes widened, her mouth dropped open as she trembled and wrapped her head around it.

"It's not..." She barely managed to get that out before she was completely swallowed up by the light. When it faded, she was gone.

Cure Night bowed her head, and Cure Sunday followed suit. Slowly, Dawn and Dusk did as well, and then the rest started to follow. Mekuramast held off for a minute or so before shaking his head, sighing, and slightly inclining it. The Moon Dial lowered to the floor, and the four Pretty Cures walked to it.

Night took a deep breath. "Are you ready?"

"Of course." Sunday smiled.

The two of them touched the Moon Dial.


	27. And, in the Future

_After that happened, the next few years were pretty different. Not bad. Actually, mostly better._

Six o'clock in the morning. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. Nakayama Yoko groaned and rolled over in the bed, covering her head with the pillow. When that didn't drown out the noise, she reached out her arm and patted the nightstand until she found the alarm and felt the buttons for the right one to shut it off. Once the incessant racket was over, she lay there stirring with her head still under the pillow.

"Yoko, get up ~susu!" Starry hopped onto the bed and started to try and shake her, though he couldn't do much with his stubby arms. "It's a school day ~susu!"

Yoko mumbled something and dragged herself to a sitting position. She rubbed her eyes and yawned before stumbling out of bed.

_I'm in high school now. I ended up leaving town for it, like Mia's older sister did. I still come back to Kazahana City on breaks, of course. All of us do. Oh, that's right - all five of us got into the same school! It took a lot of work to help Asa study when she wasn't getting enough sleep, but miraculously enough, it worked._

Getting ready for the morning while still half-asleep was an art Yoko had mastered by now. She shuffled to the small bathroom attached to her dorm room, tugged the brush through her hair, showered at record speed, cleaned out the shower, brushed her teeth, and blow-dried her hair before shuffling right back out of the bathroom in her school uniform with her pajamas in her arms. She stuffed those under her pillow and looked over at her phone. The light was blinking, so she picked it up and swiped it open. One message. She read it and shook her head.

"Asa," she laughed. "Starry, can you get in the other phone? It's her turn to keep you."

"Okay ~susu!" Starry opened up Yoko's school bag and dived into the transformation phone in the water bottle compartment.

_We haven't had enemies in a while, but we always keep our phones on us just in case. Asa says it's tempting fate otherwise, and that second seasons and movies always start out with the heroes having their transformation devices with them after their normal lives. I thought it was ridiculous, but then we actually did have a few more battles with different people. A lot more now that we're in the city. It turns out that there really are a lot of other magical girls hanging around here, and after we made the news, they started to appear, too. Strange, but what isn't these days?_

Yoko put on some lip gloss in the mirror, straightened her uniform tie, and picked up her bag. She started out the front door of her dorm room, locking it behind her, and waved to other students in the halls.

_As far as what Asa asked me on that day? I did end up accepting. She still goes on about us defying that rule in movies where the person who confesses their love before a battle dies. Some of the other students know about us, some don't because it's none of their business. This school is usually pretty good about those things, though. It's one of those international schools with a lot of foreign students, so they tend to be laid-back - there are even days where we don't have to wear our uniforms. I used to lend Asa something of mine, or someone else does, on those days, even though we're not exactly the same size. Then Yukari got hold of her and took her on a shopping spree when we were home for spring break. At least she has more clothes now and she isn't embarrassed about it._

"Yoko!"

As she was opening the door to the second floor where the dorms ended and the classrooms began, another girl ran up to her from the same dorm staircase. She had short black hair with a small, thin braid at the side, and her dark eyes were sparkling about as much as the non-regulation jewelry she was blatantly wearing over top of her uniform.

"Yukari?" Yoko waved back and held the door open for her. "Another new hairstyle? You had the last one for two months!"

"I know, I've been changing it up more often lately." Yukari played with the little braid just like she used to do with her long braid when they were younger. "But there was an idol on TV last week with the cutest hairstyle, and I had to try it out for myself!"

Yoko smiled, and they walked through the school together. "Asa said everybody else is waiting for us at the fountain. Do you want to stop there before class?"

"Only as long as we're not late!" Yukari gave a smile saying that, to be completely honest, she didn't care one bit if they were late to class.

_I did end up telling my parents eventually. I knew they wouldn't take it well, and they didn't, but they've been getting better. At least I've stayed with Asa. Takashi and Mitsuishi-san have been on again and off again for the past three years and everybody is sick of it. I know it's probably not fair - I mean, me and Asa aside, and Mia's parents aside too, not many people actually stay with a person they were with when they were in middle school. Everyone's different, after all. I moved in with Ami-sensei after I told my parents about myself, and I still live there when we all go back home. It's pretty different, but I got used to it. It's been better since the principal got his head on straight and gave her that promotion. It doesn't matter that she's not a guy, she still did more for Clair Academy than anyone. The town's starting to recognize that, too._

Yoko and Yukari walked out the side door of the school to the courtyard and looked up. Three girls waved at them from the fountain. Hoshi had cut her hair too, and the sun had lightened it a bit; it looked more boyish and a lot cleaner. Mia didn't wear a pink hair bow anymore, but she had dark blue heart barrettes on either side of her head. Asa and her tiny side ponytail were the same as always; she ran over to Yoko and hugged her, while the other three looked on, amused.

"A-Asa, we're in public-" Yoko turned red.

"It doesn't count as public if there's no one here." Asa let go anyway and pouted. Yoko laughed a little.

"Asa figured we should all meet up before class and talk about some stuff," Hoshi said. "The end of the year's coming up soon, and that means spring break. What did you guys want to do?"

"Well, it's a little late for the cultural festival at our old middle school, so we can't do that," Yukari said. "Yoko, didn't you say Ami-sensei had something planned?"

"Just that she's going to Gessou Village to check out the guest lodge and see if it's still good to take her students next year," Yoko said. "You can all come if you want. I know we got a little derailed when we went."

Hoshi eyed her suspiciously. "We don't have to babysit Allegro again, do we?"

"He's twelve now. He isn't that bad." Yoko paused. "Okay, so maybe he tried to go on another panty-thieving spree last summer break, but he stopped playing the organ at three in the morning."

The rest of the girls laughed, even Hoshi. Yoko smiled.

_Honestly, I actually think she's fine with him, even if he gets on everybody's nerves. Binbeat didn't have anywhere else to go after the Etherium - kind of like me. Ami-sensei took him in, too, and he calls himself Allegro now. It's been a little hard to get used to and there wasn't as much money as when I lived with my family, but that's all right. It seems like Ogata-san knows a lot about creating identities for people when they come in from other worlds. Besides, Mitsuishi-san and her whole group are happy to babysit. Even Omemi-san does on occasion!_

Starry looked around and jumped out of the phone into Mia's arms. "We contacted the Garden of Days last night ~susu! The Elder said that she's sending Mama and Papa here in the spring, too ~susu!"

"Really?" Mia smiled down at him. "Did they restore the next world, then?"

Starry nodded. "Putting worlds back to normal is a lot of work ~susu... We should go help them out ~susu!"

Asa grinned. "Sounds like an adventure to me! Mekuramast might be happy to see us, too. At least it will be a change of pace, right? He's been working with the Elder for a while now to bring back everything the Etherium erased."

Yoko shook her head with a smile. "Did you just agree to two adventures at once?"

Asa crossed her arms. "Geez, Yoko, it's not like Gessou Village will take up the whole time."

"All right, all right." Yoko smiled.

"Stop flirting, you two." Hoshi rolled her eyes, but her face didn't look nearly as annoyed.

_Asa had some good ideas when she told the Elder to listen to what she had to say back then. The way it used to be when Ogata-san and Ami-sensei got their powers wasn't really the best way to do things, even if it seemed like the easiest. This whole magical girl thing doesn't stop when you defeat the last enemy or when the world is saved. It's about protecting the world and caring about everyone. Like anyone else should, right?_

Yukari looked up at the clock tower. "I think we should be getting to class now."

"Okay ~susu!" Starry climbed out of Mia's arms and went into Asa's phone. "I'll be quiet ~susu!"

"Let's get going," Hoshi said. "Before we get stuck with cleaning duty again."

The five girls walked away, laughing and talking, back into the school. Asa and Yoko looked at each other as they opened the doors.

* * *

><p>The End<p> 


End file.
